Self-Portraits Everywhere!

We're buried in self-portraits at school! I feel like SPs are an annual experiment, and I'm always trying to find new media and inspiration for these. I'm working on Lichtenstein self-portraits with 5th grade right now, and 4th graders are doing an identity project with their self-portraits. I'll post those at the end of the month when they're complete. I'm trying to muster up the strength to do a collage SP project with 3rd grade in April (just thinking about carting around all the materials is giving me a headache). And this year's K and 1st grade splatter self-portraits are here. 

For now, here are a few of this year's 2nd grade self-portraits. As I usually do with 2nd, we discussed van Gogh and viewed a few of his self-portraits. We also talked about impasto and his use of color in all of his work. As with last year's 2nd grade paintings, we used oil pastels and tempera cakes, but this time we just created background textures (impasto style) with lines and dots, sticking with one color scheme for the background: warm, cool, analogous, primary, secondary, or complementary. Last year's 1st and 2nd grade Expressionist self-portraits can be viewed here.

Kandinsky Color Studies

3rd-5th grade artists just completed Kandinsky color studies. We watched a few YouTube videos of his work, and I was amazed at how captivated the students were. There are several, like this one, that simply show a slide show of his work with background music. They're quite calming. I was really amazed by one group of 3rd grade boys who had quite the deep conversation about the shapes, lines, and colors in Kandinsky's paintings, turning their heads to view the works from all angles. Students sketched and doodled in their sketchbooks while watching, making note of elements that they found interesting.

I think every art teacher does this project in some form, but I chose oil pastels and tempera paints for this year. We'd talked about color relationships, and students were given 5 required color schemes that had to be used in their paintings. The 6th square was a free choice square. Any color combo was allowed.

3rd grade colors: Primary, Secondary, Warm, Cool, Complementary (choose one pair), Choice
4th and 5th grade colors: Warm, Cool, Complementary (choose one pair), Analogous, Monochromatic (one color plus white or black)

I did this in four classes:

1. Color Theory Introduction: Students completed a tertiary color wheel using red, yellow, and blue colored pencils. (3rd graders just did primary and secondary colors.)

2. Color Relationships/Introduction to Kandinsky: Warm, Cool, Analogous, Monochromatic, Complementary

3. Pastel Drawings: We folded a 9x12 piece of manila drawing paper into 6 squares (fold once vertically, then fold into thirds). I walked through each color scheme with students as they applied pastels in circles of varying thickness, beginning with a dot. I encouraged students to apply the pastel heavily. I also had to keep reminding them to make some of their circles thick, otherwise I would have ended up with a bunch of skinny concentric circles and A LOT of "naked" paper.

4. Paint with Tempera: Because I'm mobile, I use tempera disks. (I bought the set with lids from School Specialty.) I'm not crazy about how chalky these feel after they dry, but they do serve their purpose well, and the colors are intense.

Cubist Hearts (Paul Klee)

I LOVE this lesson on Paul Klee from A Faithful Attempt! "Miss" has done an excellent job of laying out the background and process, so please visit her blog for the complete instructions. She has a number of additional excellent projects posted, as well.

Many of my 6th grade students said it was their favorite so far (we did it in early January), and the success rate was extremely high. This could easily be done with younger students, as well (3rd and up maybe?). It's an excellent introduction to Paul Klee, abstraction, and cubism.

I required my students to choose a color scheme for their composition: warm/cool, complementary, analogous, monocrhomatic, or triadic. A thin wash of tempera paint is applied over black colored pencil (for the lines) and construction paper crayons. The results are beautiful, and students got to experiment hands-on with the way color can change the mood of a composition. (Some layered a couple of tempera washes, going from blue to blue green or blue violet, etc., because their color combinations didn't turn out in reality the way students imagined they would. Great learning experience.)

I've done the project now with three of my four sixth grade classes. Here are a few finished pieces...