Mixed Media Portrait

A wonderful mixed media portrait project which I found HERE on the art blog: Art Room Britt.

See my previous post about this lesson HERE.

This was done with a class of grade 4-6 students.

 

Tim Burton Inspired Clay Portraits

This is a really fantastic lesson I found on a public Facebook art group 

"ART TEACHING EXCHANGE".

 It was posted (public group) by Amber Pitre who has a private home art studio. 

We started off with a slideshow of Tim Burton's work and films. My students don't know any of his older films (Beetlejuice, etc- *crying emoji*). We discussed the similarities of his characters and the dark and Gothic style nature of it all. 

So, following her instructions, I picked up these 4x6" wood frames from Michaels. They didn't have the exact number I needed, so I had to go searching at other stores to find small wooden frames. 

Student started by removing he cardboard from their frame and painting their frame with black acrylic paint. They wrote their names on the back. They chose a piece of scrapbook paper and traced their carboard backing onto it and glued that down. This serves as the 'wallpaper'. 

I gave each student a sheet of parchment paper to work on to create their model magic portraits.

Many student even drew out a little plan on the parchment even though I didn't ask this of them.

Because these are quite small, this only took one period (about 50 minutes). Student found out pretty quickly that it's tricky to get really small, fine details with model magic (it's so foamy) but they did pretty good! These need to dry overnight at least.

The next class they were painted using acrylics.

While they waited for these to dry, they used white paint pens to draw swirly 

and whimsical patterns on their frames. 

Then they hot glued their portrait onto their frame. I think my kids really enjoyed this project!

 

Summer Sunglasses Self Portrait

 

This was the perfect last week of school project for my Grade 4-6 class! I found it on the Art Projects For Kids website- Kathy has so many great resources and free handouts that are super handy for this time of year!

I reviewed face proportions with students and then provided them with mirrors (from Dollarama).

They drew them in pencil, then coloured with pencil crayons.

 

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: