Descriptive Self Portraits

Our 5th graders are supposed to focus on descriptive writing for our state testing so when we started our portrait unit we started by "writing our self portraits."  

To get them thinking about how to write a descriptive self portrait they had to start by physically describing themselves to someone on the phone (someone who couldn't see them).  

Next they had to describe their personality and list 10 things they like and 10 things they dislike. 

After they sketched out their images, the wrote their portraits down onto watercolor paper.  

We finished them using wet in wet technique.  

Our watercolors were crayola marker watercolors and the kids loved them!  

I loved how different they all were.  

Some were so free while others were very structured.  

Some used just a few colors while others had to use every color.  

Some students were very brief with their writing and chose a few words to describe them.  

Others wrote and wrote and wrote. 

They were all very eye opening as to the students personalities. 

You can check out more at artsonia. 

Be a Super Hero!

Drawing portraits is always an interesting challenge for middle school kids.  They developing from Dawning Realism to the Pseudo-Naturalistic Stage and they can be super critical of themselves.  It is important that they learn the rules of drawing a face but that they also have the "freedom" to make mistakes.  

This super hero project works great.  They are to draw themselves as a super hero but if they make a mistake or two it is okay because it is a cartoon version of themselves. 

We start the lesson by having them draw "the best human face" that they can.  They next class period we work together through this worksheet.  They then plan out their cover.  

I printed out a bunch of papers with the bar code and MS Comics logo.  They did they rest.  It is fun to see what their super hero powers are and how they view themselves.  

you can find more at our Artsonia site. 

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?

Check out more at Artsonia...

Use your Brain

Last year a student gave me this picture

after my "use your Right brain in art class" talk.

Little did he know that it would be the foundation for an assignment he would have to do in 6th grade.  Here is his project from 6th grade.

The project required the student to take a personality assessment that helped the learn if they were a stronger left brain or a stronger right brain.  They then researched the characteristics of each type of learning.  They listed the things the most related to them.  We also looked at some of the hundred's of graphic images comparing left brain vs. right brain. (just google left brain vs. right brain and hit image) Then they got to going. 

Their image had to show how their brain worked (more left, more right, in the middle).  2 days worth of kids used their photos.  

While 2 days worth of kids used a photo of a brain.

You can check out more of them at artsonia.com