Self-Portraits. The true representation of the artist created by the artist in the medium of their choice. It's like the artistic version of writing your own autobiography. For some people, they welcome the challenge to accurately depict their self-image, gaining confidence as they develop more experience through practice. Others no matter their age see this assignment as the ultimate obstacle to overcome.
Learning to draw representationally is an essential skill for artists to develop at the secondary level. It takes focus, technique, practice, and even self-acceptance. I start teaching middle school students to draw realistic subjects from a photo so that they can break it down into the positive and negative spaces they see in the lines and shapes of what they are trying to draw. In this drawing project, it's their selfie!
My 6th grade students from 1st trimester each created a composition by posing with their hand in the selfie. They had the choice to smile or wear a mask for the photo since we took these pictures from their laptops outside in the courtyard. Photo Shoot day is funny because students go through several retakes until they resign with the photo that they are willing to draw from!
We started with a trial run by each student getting a copy of Mrs. Jager's selfie and measuring a 1 inch by 1 inch grid to break the photo down into smaller sections. Using a colored marker, they outlined all of the contour lines in the photo to help these details stand out. With another piece of construction paper, the students covered up the entire photo and revealed one row at a time to observe and draw exactly what they saw. Focusing on one section at a time is less overwhelming and allows your brain to study how the lines and shapes connect along with the spatial awareness of how far apart they are from each other. After two days of practice drawing the outlines of Mrs. Jager's photo, they were ready to repeat this process with their own image.
I've never seen so much focus from 6th graders! A pin could have dropped in the room and they would still be drawing their self-portraits with a careful eye on their selfies.
When their drawings were complete, they outlined the contour lines in sharpie and layered their portraits with oil pastels in any colors they wanted.
Some students were really proud of their self-portrait drawings!
Now for the really fun part! The students were given a day outside of free choice abstract expressionism painting by layering on two blank papers. These paintings would later become the background colors of their self-portrait drawings.
The next day they ripped their paintings into tiny pieces and overlapped the painted papers as a background collage for their self-portraits. The dynamic colors really brought energy and life to their drawings.
The final product got a lot of oooh's and aaahhh's when on display in the cafeteria commons. I liked combining the technical aspect of representational drawing with the creative outlet of a mixed media collage. It reminds kids that art takes quality effort and hard work but is also a form of self-expression. Students also feel a sense of accomplishment viewing the final artwork because they have more confidence that they CAN draw their self-portrait and that they have a choice in how they present themselves to the world.
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