To start our year off, we created self-portraits in some unusual ways. It is always fun to see how my students choose to represent themselves. There is a lot to be "read" in personal portraits!
Shoe Self-Portraits by 2nd-5th Grades
This was one of those projects that gave me my first big "ooohhh" of the year. I absolutely love how these pieces came out! I explained to the students that I had a theory that you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their shoes. I followed that idea up with some examples of shoe self-portraits created by various other artists. I made sure to include images of ballet shoes, ice skates, dirty sneakers, etc. to encourage a discussion about the person and their hobbies. The point seemed to really hit home with the kids. They then drew their shoe from observation (hence the upside down logos and writing) and added repeating contour lines to make a pattern. I let them add color however they wished with oil pastel, crayon, and marker. A funky, fun, and pretty simple project!
Hand Self-Portraits by Pre-K-1st Grades
Oh, the little ones! With a background in early childhood, I just cannot even express how much I love to work with these guys. These self-portraits were easy and so accessible, even for my little babies who can't quite grasp the crayon just yet. I simply helped some of them with the tracing and allowed them to just enjoy adding color. But those bigger kiddos did some amazing things with these compositions. I encouraged them to allow the hand prints to touch or overlap (our big word of the week) and showed them how to add extra lines and color to make patterns. They took it to a whole new level! Amazing work!
Monochromatic Self-Portraits by 2nd-5th Grades
Our first week's project was to create a monochromatic self-portrait. I purposefully included some tertiary colors in the mix of drawing tools just to start a conversation. So many students were asking if it was OK to use "red-orange" if their portrait was intended to be red, or fully believed there was some giant mix-up with the drawing tools. Ahhh...natural discovery! Love it! Students created a simple line drawing using permanent marker and then added color using one selection of hues. It was certainly challenging to them to find the right tool for darker areas versus lighter and was also a great exercise to do with value and pressure on the drawing tool.
I was so excited when I saw this post! You said you were excited to see what we were up to and I was checking out what you were up to and BAM! We're doing the EXACT same thing! Love it! 1st-5th they had to use their FAVORITE color and then I'll make some sort of a display and students can see who shares their favorite color. . . (math related? possibly) Anyways love seeing you as usual and I'll check back soon. Everything looks great and enjoy getting them into the routine!
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