In the Art Room: Printed and Collaged Winter Self Portraits by Second Grade

So I kinda sorta told the kids that if they painted and printed their winter selfies really well, we just might get the magic of snow. Snow seems to elude us in these parts...but not this year. Turns out these cute things really DID bring on the snow which was totes fab...except for the fact that it meant we've been working on these bad boys for a coupla days weeks. But that's all right. I mean, just take a lil look-see at how stinkin' awesome these printed and collaged winter self-portraits are!

I knew I wanted to introduce my second graders to printmaking but how? I remembered that my buddy Laura over at this fab-o blog taught her students how to create adorable winter selfies last year. I thought it'd be fun to add the printmaking element to this lesson and viola! Here you have it!

This lesson was chuck full o' art teacherin' moments: we learned how to use the elements of art to create pattern, we learned how to make both marker and ink prints, we learned how to create a tint of blue and print snowflakes in the background, how to draw selfies and design a pleasing composition. In short, we was busy. 

Lemme break it down for you:

Day #1: Intro to carving a print. We used Scratch-Art Foam Board but styrofoam plates would work in a pinch. I had created hat and mitten templates so that we could move on to the pattern designing and printmaking faster. I have 30 minutes art classes so I have to take the guess work outta some things. After the first class, most of us had this:

Day #2: On the second day, we continued our pattern design with ink pen. I encouraged the kids to go over their lines more than once just to make sure they'd have a successful print. Early finishers colored with marker and we started to pull marker prints. You can see that in the video...if you've never done it, it's magical!

Day #3: We are ready to use brayers and ink to pull prints! I like to use water soluble Speedball ink because it's the jam. I usually lay out a couple of colors and the kids rotated creating two different color prints on colorful copy paper. (This video was created for my third graders but it's the same idea so I thought I'd share!)

Day #4: We learned how to create a tint of blue and painted a piece of construction paper. We also used cut pieces of mat board to dip into white paint and print snowflakes. It was fun to introduce the kids to a coupla printing processes.

 Day #5: Selfie time! The kids had mirrors, this idea sheet and sketch paper. They had to create three thumbnail selfie sketches before moving on to drawing on their final paper. Pink chalk was used to show just how cold it was outside!

 Day #6: Time to start assembling our collage. We had a long chat about composition and balance before going on this adventure. The kids could use their favorite prints, whether that was their marker or ink prints (we'll use the extra prints for another project, stay tuned!). I happened to have a ton of scrap paper from another project so many of the kids used oil pastels to create scarves!

Some of the girls used chalk for their long hair. 

So in love with this self-portrait! I love how vibrant the marker prints are, it made my happy when the kids chose them. 

Several students decided to arrange their composition on a horizontal format. 

 Last thing added was the pompom! For that, have the kids wrap an 18" long piece of yarn many times around a 2" piece of cardboard. Carefully slide it off and double knot tie another string around the middle. Trim the loops of yarn and you have a pompom!

Now...maybe sharing these snowy selfies here will get me one more snow day, eep!