May 16 - The "Original Selfie"

Earlier this year iPad Art Room had a post "Don't Hate the Selfie" and it was great.  The visual alone inspired this years 6th grade portrait project.  I started the lesson with a presentation that showed some pretty famous "selfies" updated.

Students started by going to the computer lab and finding/researching an "old school selfie."  They had to find an image they liked, research the artist who created it and plan how they would modernize it.  

Then we came back to the art room and they worked on griding out their portraits.  They drew the grid on their paper and we had some standard grids printed out on overhead transparencies for them to lay over their photos.  They spent 2 weeks drawing out their images and deciding how to modernize their image. 

Next they decided what to do about finishing their project.  I gave them the opportunity to choose from oil pastel, tempera, watercolor or colored pencil to finish their images.  They were working so hard and they were turning out great so I decided to mat them.  I cut each portrait to 11x17 and then they selected a colored construction paper to serve as the mat.  They also finished each project with a tag listing the name of the artwork, the original artist and the date of its creation.  They added some information telling what they did to modernize the image. 

Courtney did a great job so here is her's step by step:

Marcanottio Bassetti's "Portrait of an Old Man with Gloves"

Courtney's Old Man with iPod

Information tag for the portrait

Here are few of them with tags:

Alicia's Girl with Beats

Ali's Minecraft Boy Blue

And a few close ups:

Tech Savy Grant Wood?

Beethoven and Patrick?

Pablo Picasso with ear buds?

Henri Matisse aka the Terminator?

iPhone Selfie Loving Frida Kahlo?

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