Brace yourself. You're in for an overload of First Grade Fantastical Cuteness in the form of Royal Self-Portraits!
Like, riiiiiight?! I can't even, y'all. These selfies are so sweet it's like a lollypop dipped in Fruity Pebbles dipped in milk chocolate and covered in sprinkles (guess who has a strong sweet tooth? GUESS). My fab-o first grade artists completed these just in time for me to get them shipped off to Artome for their frames. And I'm so excited for these are totally frame-worthy. I don't often repeat projects but when I was dreaming up a self-portrait unit for all of my classes, I knew I wanted to give this lesson another go-round. I did have to alter the lesson quite a bit as the format of the Artome frames is half the size what I usually have my students work. Lemme tell you how we created these bad boys, er, royal dudes and dudettes.
I'll break the lesson down for y'all...keep in mind that my classes are 30 minutes in length. This project took us about two weeks to complete. On the first day, the kids were given a 9" X 12" sheet of white paper and tasked to paint that paper the color of them. Before doing so, we read this great book:
In the book, a young girl paints portraits of her friends mixing up their unique skin color. The kids were given brown, black, white, red and yellow paint. We chatted about tints, shades and mixing up a variety of flesh tones. The kids painted their sheet of paper their unique skin tone.
The following day, on that sheet of painted paper, the kids traced a head template in the middle of the paper and added two vertical lines for the neck. This was done independently and in pencil. Once complete, the kids met with me on the floor for a little guided drawing. We chatted about the proportions of the face and facial features. We drew together in oil pastel. When using oil pastel, I always stress to the kids to use black last and never to wipe their paper as it can smear the pastel. That was completed on our second day.
During our third art class, we cut our portraits away from the painted paper and glued it to a new sheet of 9" X 12" paper. We had a nice chat about painting hair: mixing the right color and creating texture. Once the hair was painted, the kids put those on the drying rack and worked on their crowns. For that, we used gold painted papers and crown templates. I had cut pieces of metallic paper (I found some metallic origami paper to be just the thing!) and the kids added jewels to their crown. I did chat with them about symmetry and balance when it came to the placement of the jewels. It's always good to pack as much educational punch into those lessons as we can!
Our fourth day, crowns were attached to heads and clothing was created. For our clothes, the kids were given a rectangle for their shirt and two squares for their sleeves. These were decorated with my favorite florescent oil pastels (really, where have these BEEN all my life?!) and attached at the bottom of the paper.
Finally came the background! We used Crayola's water soluble oil pastels for that. The kids could use either warm or cool colors for the background before adding water to paint.
Ta-da! You might have noticed that some of my fancier friends added coffee filters for a ruffly collar to their shirt, sparkly earrings and more jewels. They really had a lot of fun getting all kinds of royal for their selfies.
Finally, they had to come up with a title for their piece. "Princess Cutie Cute" will forever go down in history as my favorite title for these precious masterpieces. I cannot wait to see them framed and in our Artome art show! Love to hear about your favorite self-portrait projects, y'all!
A couple of weeks ago, I shared with y'all a video I created for my third graders. The video (seen below) introduced my kids to the colorful work of Sandra Silbertzweig and allowed them to explore creating a colorful and abstract self portrait. This lesson is currently one of my faves! Check out how stunning these beauties turned out. All of my students are currently creating a wide variety of self portraits for our Artome fundraiser...and I daresay, these just might be my faves.
For this project, we used:
* 9" X 12" black or dark blue construction paper. I would have loved to make these bigger but that is the size of the Artome frames.
* Black glue or black puffy paint. There are a couple of ways to create black glue. My friend Ginger creates black glue with a mixture of Elmer's All Purpose glue and India Ink. I created mine with a one part mixture of paint to two parts glue. The key is to use Elmer's All Purpose, not the school grade stuff as it's runny. Also, I had some students use black puffy paint which worked great. Another alternative is to use glue on black paper as it dries clear and will leave behind a kind of transparent line that the dark paper can show through.
* Chalk. I'm a big fan of Koss Brand chalk which can be found on Amazon. It's pricey but GREAT.
This project took us two plus art classes to complete. On the first day, we watched the video, learned about Sandra and did a little guided drawing. If you watch the video, you'll see I left the drawing portion open to many levels of drawing alternatives. Once the drawing was complete, the kids traced their lines in glue. From there, if time allowed, we watched a bit more of the video as a kind of sneak peak to the following week.
The real fun came with the chalk. In the video, I really stress how to use the chalk properly...and we do a whole lot of chatting about analogous colors. I really felt like this lesson was a wonderful exploration of color theory.
Here is how each table of four children was set up: a laminated colorwheel that I found online and two bowls of chalk, one warm, the other cold. Students were to use the colorwheel as I did in the video. Many of them took the time to pair up and lay all of their chalk out on the wheel. This way, they could easily see what colors were available to use. I love that they were so into picking the correct colors for this project.
After the second day, several kids were not finished. This was fine with me...I mean, look at those results! The following art class, as they wrapped up their drawing, we chatted about how their artwork was going to be hung like work in a museum. I had them get a notecard and create a label for their work. On their label, they were to write: Artists Name Title Medium Process or Description The information from this card will be used as both an assessment and also info for their Artome paperwork.
Once all pieces were complete, I blew off the excess dust and sprayed them liberally with Aqua Net. I did that three times to insure the chalk particles were attached. I'm hoping hey remain as vibrant and colorful when they are framed.
Because of our small format, I decided to opt out of having the kids add designs to their work. I had a feeling it might have gotten a little muddy if we did. If the pieces had been of larger format, I think that would have worked well.
I'm so looking forward to this winter art show. All of the kids have been creating beautiful works of art! I'll be sharing the work of my other grades soon.
If you follow me here, then you already know that all my kids are currently creating self-portraits for our upcoming winter art show with Artome. I shared what my third graders are up to here (Y'ALL. THEY ARE TURNING OUT SO AMAZING). My second graders are making a variation of this Super Hero Selfie project that I did with my fourth grade last year...I'll be certain to share those with you soon. My firsties are becoming royal with these Royal Self Portraits while kindergarten is doing a variation of Ain't Gonna Paint No More selfies. Because the Artome frames fit 9" X 12" artwork and I usually have my kids work twice that size, I've had to really rethink and adjust some of these projects. I'll be sure to share them with you in the near future. To get the ball rolling, I thought I'd share with you this videoed Romero Britto lesson and the fourth graders' results.
In case you don't know, Romero Britto is a Brazilian neo-pop artist who lives in Miami. I have shared his colorful work with my students when we did this project:
My fourth grade kids are so great at creating colorful designs and patterns that I thought this project would be perfect for them.
But I had to give 'em a little inspo first...
Before diving in to the video:
Here's what we cranked out the first day!
They did a bang up job and were pretty stinkin' proud. I teach doubled up fourth grade classes (meaning there are about 35 kids in the room). After doing the first portion of the video independently at our seats, we returned to the floor with clipboards, our papers and pencils to do a guided drawing together. I really liked having them watch the video as there were less interruptions. I did pause it every now and then to reexplain or allow the kids to catch up.
Once we were finished drawing on the floor together, the kids had mirrors at their seats. I told them that the guided drawing was a kind of template for them that they should alter and change once at their seats. I encouraged them to really study their faces, freckles, glasses and details and add them to their selfies. Once completed in pencil, they traced over their lines in Sharpie.
I really thought the kids would get further along than this...but they were so into drawing their likeness that I didn't want to rush them ahead. Next up, I'll provide them with some pattern idea sheets for them to draw their designs before adding color.
I really can't wait to see how these turn out!
I have noticed that teaching self portrait drawing to older kids is pretty tough. Not cuz they can't handle it but because they are so hard on themselves! So I really REALLY discourage any erasing until they are back at their seats. I tell them that it is "just practice" and that they are learning something new...and to go easy on themselves. Only when they return to their seats are they allowed to change and erase...but I don't allow them to get another piece of paper. When I had a students say, "I don't like mine," I asked, "what do you not like?" When she replied with an "everything!" I told her to pick one thing she liked the least and we worked on that. Then we picked the next thing and we worked on that. Within five minutes, she was much happier with her drawing. It's a process with this age group. You gotta do what works without letting them throw in the towel.
Next up, we'll add patterns of things that interest us (I used paint splatters and music notes in mine to give them some ideas) as well as color.
I'll be sure to share our progress! Until then, feel free to use this video and lesson in your art teacherin' world. I'd love to see what your kids create! Shoot me an email if you do.
I'm doing something new this winter: an art show with Artome. If you aren't familiar, it's an organization that will frame student art work and completely transform you school into an art museum for parents to enjoy and purchase the framed works of art. I'm having each of my kindergarten through fourth graders create self-portraits as I kinda think that is something all parents would want to keep forever. If you follow me here, you've seen a little of our progress. I'll be creating a video'ed lesson for each of these self portrait units. And if you wanna stay up to date on those, you can subscribe here!
For third grade, I decided to introduce them to the artist Sandra Silberzweig and her fantastically colorful works of art. I love them so! The kids have loved the process of creating their abstract selfies so far.
Here's the video'ed lesson. Feel free to use it in your art teacherin'/makerin' setting.
So far, we've done the glue portion. Someone recently suggested that mixing India ink with white glue works better. I also had black puffy paint on hand for the kids who created very fine details. The difference between the puff and glue is that the puffy paint dries with a high gloss finish and is, of course, more puffy. It also is harder to use as it doesn't come out of the bottles as easily. We had to take "hand breaks" to give our wee hand muscles a rest.
By the way, the chalk I am using in the video is a brand called KOSS. I have found it on Amazon...and it truly is the best and brightest chalk I have found to use. It isn't cheap...but we've used it for years. It is the same chalk we used to create our ceiling tiles!
When I share this video with my students, it will be divided up into two parts: one day drawing and gluing, the next chalking. I'm excited to throw color theory into this lesson.
I plan to have several of these printed (and laminated!) for the kids to use at their seats as they explore analogous colors.
I'll be certain to keep y'all updated on their colorful progress...and stay tuned for more selfie lessons and videos to come!
Well, hello there. This big toothy grin is brought to you by our mini-monochromatic self-portrait project! Our first project of the new school year is a collaborative one. Each of my four hundred-ish students will be making a 3" square selfie to contribute to a large mural. Y'all might have seen the rainbow portrait mural that was all the rage on Pinterest a couple years ago (in case you missed, it's the same process as what I'm sharing here. When complete, the portraits are hung in Roy G. Biv order which makes for a beautiful display). The last time I did a project like this (back in 2012), we hung the pieces to create a large world map. This go-round I have something different in mind which I hope to have ready to share with y'all real soon. In the meantime, let's chat monochromatic self-portraits!
I have my older students, third and fourth grade, for an hour. After watching the start of the video below, I allowed the students the choice of either participating in the guided drawing in the video or working on their own. My classes were pretty evenly split between those who preferred guided vs. independent. Some kids would draw along for a while until they felt comfortable then migrate to their chosen table (more on that in a sec) while others would decide they'd like a little guidance and join the kids on the floor.
Creating this video was great in that I could add vocabulary pop-ups when needed. I also think that the intro would work great with a variety of self-portrait projects. Feel free to show it in your art room, that's why I'm sharing it here! You can find many more videos like this on my YouTube channel. I add more videos weekly so if you subscribe, you can stay tuned.
My third graders (seen above) were able to bust these bad boys out in no time. I had only one rule when coloring: only use colored pencils on the face. I learned from experience that the dark markers will often cover too much of the face and the kids lose their beautiful details.
So, who did they know which colors to use?
I color coded the tables! I told the kids that the table cloth signified which color was available on the table. Inside those plastic bins were markers and colored pencils of only one color. I also had mirrors and "idea sheets" (with a variety of faces and facial features) drawn on them.
So on the first days of art, the kids sat where they liked, no assigned seats. This gave me a chance to see who would migrate together and who would not be able to sit with their buddy (more talkie than workie means new seatie for sweetie).
AH!! First grade! Their selfies made me smile!
For the wee ones, we did a guided drawing activity. We spent one day learning about self-portraits and drawing them together.
I love this activity because it's such a great assessment of student skill level at the start of the year. It also is gonna make a super sweet mural that I can pop up on the walls right away. And, who doesn't love a selfie? Especially when they are this cute.
Love to hear what y'all are doing for these first weeks back to school!
