Kinders Do Self Portraits.

Ohhh yeah, we so went there.  Each and every year, I try and do a self portrait unit with each and every grade.  And each and every year, I am ever so curious (and just a little bit nervous) to see how they go with my Kinder kiddos.

To begin, we read Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss and my students were a little concerned about my well-being because it never fails, I ALWAYS tear up big time while reading this book.  Darn end-of-the-year emotions!

After the story (and wiping away my tears), I did a quick little demo of drawing my self portrait with only an oil pastel starting with a basic "U" shape for my head and going from there.  We talked about our eye colors, our hair colors and textures, and proportions of our facial features all while I did the drawing demo on our Smart Board.  I felt juuuust a little bit like Bob Ross as I talked while drawing, and found myself saying things like, "and let's add in a happy mouth."  Love that guy.

After the Kinder kids drew their own portraits in oil pastel, I demo-ed how to mix colors on our mixing papers to make my transparent skin color (seriously, I look like I belong in The Walking Dead) and then use the primary colors to add in a pop of other colors for our facial features, clothing, and backgrounds.

The next class, I plopped down some palettes of paint with varying skin tones, some white and black, and the primary colors.  I wanted to share just a few of my favorite portraits with you below.  Now, while I gave some of them silly titles, I want you to know that EVERY single little artist put their heart and soul into their paintings and I don't mean any disrespect.  Sometimes we art teachers just need to have a little fun, especially when we have an ENTIRE week added onto our school year. Grrrrr, Midwest weather!

 So without further ado, here are some select portraits below:

The "NO! My Hair is Orange" Portrait

Here's how the conversation went:
Me: "Ummm, what color is your hair sweetie?"
Kinder:  (without hesitation) "Orange, of course!"
Me:  "Are you sure?  It looks kind of like dark brown to me.  But maybe run into the bathroom quickly to check."
Kinder:  "No! My hair is orange."  (runs to the bathroom)

Five minutes later...
Me: "Did you check your hair?"
 Kinder:  "Nope, but I did use the toilet."


The "Most Beautiful Bambi Eyes" Portrait

The "Cosby Sweater" Portrait

The "If Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes Was a Real Kid" Portrait

The "Most Textured Hair" Portrait

The "Friendliest Kindergartener" Portrait

The "Dot-alicious" Portrait

The "Jackson Pollock" Portrait

The "Yeah, I'm Wearing a Mouth Guard" Portrait

The "Channeling My Inner Modigliani" Portrait

The "Primary Color Party" Portrait

The "I Just Might Be Part Gonzo" Portrait

Best of luck to you with your end of the school year.  And if you're already on break, enjoy a well-earned grown-up apple juice for me, you lucky teacher, you!

The Magritte Goes On.

As Cher says, "the beat goes on," but in Art world that means la dee da dee da, the Magritte goes on.  Earlier (as in months ago), I shared the Surrealist projects my 3rd and 4th grades worked on here and here.

And now, due to a bazillion polar vortex days, slow and steady 5th graders, and a crazy art teacher who  has attention issues and skips around from one project to another without finishing the first project, we are FINALLY finished.  Phewwwwww.

This project seriously took us FOREVER.

I like to do a self portrait unit with every class every year, so that way they've got a permanent collection at home showing their growth as young artists.

My Fifth Graders created their portraits after a TON of planning and practice.  They started by completing the self portrait grid (after a teacher demo of course).

Exhibit A: proportional face grid that resembles a fencing mask...

Students also had to complete the Color Pencil Practice Worksheet and check both sheets with me before moving onto their final portrait paper.  I am embarrassed to admit that I have access to all these fancy schmancy tech tools, and then I still end up drawing the worksheet template with a sharpie.  LAME.

Self portraits were done with pencil, then sharpie, and then finally color pencils.

Students could select whatever fruit they wanted and then they attached them with string and a hole punch.  And what a variety of fruit faces we had!

My original plan was to glue down the fruit onto their little faces, but after all of that hard work, I felt awful covering up their fantastic faces.  I wonder how Magritte created his?  Do you think he painted his whole face and then added the apple on top or just partially painted his face?

I've got them hanging in one of our main hallways, so that whenever someone walks by, the breeze moves the fruit ever so slightly.

Now that's some interactive art!!!

Not gonna lie, after working on these, I have been majorly craving fruit and loaded my grocery cart up with all kinda varieties.  Fruit-tastic!