First Grade Portraits

Portraits are always a fun project to do with 1st grade students as they learn about the proper proportion of the face. In these projects, students also learned about the medium of oil pastels. They experienced layering and blending them to create new colors.

Perfect Portraits

Each year I like to teach PORTRAIT to my 1st grade students as it is a great way to teach proportion, formal balance, and color blending. We also discuss what makes a portrait a portrait---when the artist focuses your attention on WHO the person is instead of what they are doing. We also learn about blending colors using oil pastels. As you can see, it makes for some interesting color. This year, I added a pattern component. The portraits were remounted on colored construction paper and different patterns were added around the "frame". We did discuss regular and irregular pattern so the students could practice both on their portraits.

First grade Portraits starting to Emerge

This is one of my favorite projects. Perhaps, that is why it is done on almost a annual basis. I really love seeing how this little guys express themselves when learning about PORTRAIT. First we discuss PORTRAIT. What is it? What does the artist want us to see? Then we learn about putting the face together, where the features go, and how big they are compared to each other - perspective. After a couple of practice drawings, we start on the final sheet. The next step is to begin filling in color with oil pastels. I usually have them layer a couple of colors, such as orange and a "skin" color, to give our faces some warmth. Then we move onto clothing, making sure to mix at least two similar colors, finally we get to the hair. We discuss that hair is not one big piece, but many different strands that are different colors. I demonstrate how we can create the look of strans by laying lines of different color, then they create hair. To top it off, we fill in a background that could deal which seasons, events, or even different artists styles. The result is some truly amazing work!