Fairy Tale Self Portraits by 1st Grade

These are some wonderful multimedia self-portraits by my first grade students of themselves as their favorite fairy tale characters.


Materials (Day 1):
tempera cakes
permanent markers
12 X 18 white heavy stock paper
pictures of fairy tale characters (ideally artist's paintings of characters and not the famous cartoon variety)


Procedure:
1. Students are instructed to start by drawing a huge oval. We then draw two curving lines for the neck and diagonal lines to the corner of the page for shoulders. 
2. Discuss the shapes of our eyes, note that we have eyelids and eyelashes (boys too--they always giggle at this!), and ask them to feel their nose and describe its shape. Have them pantomime draw these shapes in the air with you. 
3. Students then may customize their self-portraits to their own features. After this step, I instruct them to "dress" themselves up as their favorite fairy tale character by drawing on clothes that let us know who they are. We talked a lot about hats, jewelry, capes, crowns, etc. 
4. Students use tempera cakes to paint inside the permanent marker drawing. We discuss brush size, noting that the fatter brushes are for large areas and the smaller ones are for details. I had them do a large wash over the skin area and then go back to do the rest.
5. Let dry.

Materials (Day 2):
scissors
white glue
glue sticks
12 X 18 colored paper
collage materials (feathers, sequins, patterned and shiny paper, fabric, etc.)


Procedure:
1. Students cut out their self-portrait. They then glue them using glue sticks onto self-selected colorful paper. I have the students "draw" the glue stick around the outside edge first and then scribble it lightly into the middle. I show them how to line up the straight edge at the bottom of their cut out portrait with the straight edge of the paper before sticking it down.
2. Students then drew some lines of their choice with permanent marker and traced with oil pastels.
3. Students used collage materials to decorate their costumes. 


This project was loads of fun! The kids absolutely loved it. I enjoyed the connection between "playing dress-up" and creating a self-portrait.