Sandra Silberzweig style Whimsical Portrait Paintings

 

Grade 4-6 students created these poster sized portrait paintings inspired by contemporary Canadian artist Sandra Silberzweig. 

 She has a rare condition known as "synesthesia". People Diagnosed with this condition, see, hear and taste color! Children growing up with this condition, may not be aware that others do not see or experience the world as they do. She uses her talents to create tribal-like colorful abstract portraits. Her influences come from  many sources. Picasso's art influenced  her work most of all.  

I started off by showing a slideshow of Silberzweig's artwork. We discussed how stylized her portraits are, with elements of Cubism. 

On poster paper, students drew out their good copy face. 

Then they outlined them using a King Size Sharpie.

Some kids worked on the floor so they had space to spread out!

The first media they used was watercolour. They painted in all the areas of the face- not the background.

  

Next class, they added chalk pastel over top the watercolour in areas, and blended that out.

Then they painted the entire background with black tempera. This needed two coats to be fully opaque.

Once dry, they used gold tempera (I like the gold from the brand 'Handy Art') and painted a simple pattern on top of the black backgrounds.

The final step was using acrylic paint pens to add small patterns and line work 

Some Grade 4,5,6 paintings:

Macarons in chalk pastel

This was a quick but effective lesson on form and shading, using chalk pastels.

I demonstrated how to draw a macaron to Grade 7-9 students. 

I showed them the ruffled 'foot' part and how to do a soft highlight.

They drew them nice and large on 9 x 12" construction paper. 

Then they coloured and blended them using chalk pastels. 

Finally, they were cut out. 

Most students just managed to finish in our 80 minute block. 

As you can see, strawberry was a favourite flavour!

 

Rose Drawing for Valentine's Day

I needed a quick and effective one day lesson for a new group of students I had. This rose drawing lesson gave me a really good indication of each student's level. As well, they were able to take their art home that day and give it to someone for Valentine's Day. 

I found the drawing tutorial on Art Projects for Kids. 

My class is a mixed group of Grade 4,5,6 students, so this tutorial has enough detail 

to make the rose look dimensional, but not so much to make it difficult. 

I demonstrated for them how to draw the rose, then some simple shading techniques using coloured pencils. Students were encouraged to add their own details to make it their own style.