All new ideas for this year’s self portraits in elementary! Kindergarten and 1st grade drew themselves in their dream jobs. 2nd and 3rd grade did monochromatic Picasso-style portraits. 4th and 5th grade created self portraits in the style of Roy Lichtenstein/Pop Art.
This was a crazy fun unit which I thought would be a disaster with my most challenging group of students, but it turned out to be a winner. We began with a series of sketchbook assignments to warm up. I found these short one-day assignments to be quite successful.
#1 Contour Line Drawing of a Shoe, Cut Up and Rearranged
#2 Magazine Head Collage
#3 Picasso Pal Drawing
#4, #5 and #6 Front, 3/4 and Side View Portraits of a Partner
*Thanks to my sponsor teachers at RHS for these ideas!
The portrait drawings were cut up and rearranged on a new sketchbook page to create Cubist-like arrangements. Students then redrew these compositions onto larger sheets of paper. We added onto our drawings with collage elements. These included:
We reviewed monochromatic colour mixing before painting our final portraits with this colour scheme. The final pieces are ridiculous and crazy, very fitting for this energetic class!
Gateway Art 