I found this lesson idea over at Art Projects for Kids and decided to try it with my grade three students.  I am a new fan of Amedeo Modigliani and the kids are too.

After looking at many of the artists’ paintings I gave out 18 x 12 black paper. The students drew their self-portraits using a mirror and made sure their necks were especially longer than normal. The placement of the facial features is different to what you normally teach kids so make sure they know proper facial placement before you do this lesson. Some of the students wanted to tilt their heads to a side as they saw in many of the Modigliani portraits and this is good too.

The students outlined their pencil lines with a white crayon to make it easier to see the lines. With a black oil pastel they outlined all their white lines heavily and were ready to fill in the areas with the rest of the oil pastels.

Make sure your students start with the skin areas first, then the eyes and hair. Encourage the students to mix colors and to be bold with their color choices. The backgrounds should be dramatic so the self-portrait stands out.

These turned our gorgeous, don’t you think?

For other neat self portrait ideas click here.

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