Monochromatic Self Portraits Mural

It is finally up, our school-wide self portrait installation is in our school hallway. I shared the processes of creating theses beauties in my last post school-wide-self-portraits.

The rainbow of monochromatic color portraits isn't a new idea. You can see these all over Pinterest or a perform a Google search. I decided that I had to try it out with my students.

With the help of 2 wonderful parent volunteers, this portrait mural was assembled and installed in our central hallway next to the library.

I've love watching my students stop and search for their self portrait. I also look forward to October conferences when they can show their parents.

Overall, I'd say this collaboration was as success and the kids really took pride in their contribution.

School wide Self Portraits

During our first staff in-service day back in August, our entire staff wrote on a large poster what they hoped for the North Star students. This poster is hung just outside the library which is central in our school. One of our 3rd grade teachers, who is pursuing her principal credential, guided the staff through this process and asked each teacher to have their students answer the same questions for themselves.

I decided to build off of this idea and have each student create a self portrait in a monochromatic color to go along with the staff/student posters. Next week, all the portraits will be finished and me and a team of parent volunteers will assemble and display them. I'll be sure to share photos once it is up.

Here are the flipped lessons I shared with my students to teach them about portraiture and monochromatic color.

Jasper John Self Portraits in Kindergarten

We are getting close to the end of our school year and I saved the Printmaking unit for the end. I wanted to keep these Summer ready kiddos engaged and Printmaking is a great way to do that. It is relatively easy to learn and the possibilities for artistic choice making is endless.

The kindergarten artists were practicing the most basic form of printmaking which is stamping. I instructed the students to begin by tracing rectangles in rows and columns on a large piece of drawing paper. Then they laid their pastels on their sides to color in each rectangle with different colors. They could mix colors with layers if they chose to do so. 

To help guide our art making we looked at the "Alphabet Painting" by Jasper Johns. I didn't dig into Pop Art History too deeply with the kinders but we did discuss how we were able to recognize the alphabet and that Jasper Johns liked used very recognizable images in his artwork.

Jasper Johns "Alphabet" 1959

I then place trays of various paints at tables along with foam letter sponges. The students were to rotate to tables after about 30 seconds or so to stamp their foam letters into the paint and print them inside the rectangles on their papers.

The sponges I used I bought through my district's catalog.

For time constraints and ease of sponge access, I didn't require students to put the letters in order of the alphabet.

The next day I had the students choose a piece of skin toned construction paper (I had 6 different tones to choose from)  so that we could do some guided drawing in creating their self portraits. I gave them a basic face shape to start with and encouraged them to add unique details such as freckles, missing teeth, etc.

They traced their drawings with oil pastels and glued it to their alphabet paintings. They painted their hair and added a paper shirt to finish.

Thanks for stopping by!