Third Grade's Old and New Self Portraits

I hoped to spend more time on this unit, but the last day of school came quick this year.  I did a similar project with the third grade last year, which you can read about on my post Click Here for Painting Portraits with Kehinde Wiley.  Rather than focusing on the whole figure this year, we just worked on tightening up our facial proportions instead.  Students watched an excellent video created by a child artists seen below, to help guide them step by step with their self portrait sketches they drew on the correct skin tone paper.

Students creating self portrait, while listening to video on their tablets

We began their self portrait unit by getting some inspiration from current African American Harlem based artist Kehinde Wiley.  We analyzed his artwork and recognized how his figures often times are in a pose of power with elaborate patterns in the background.  We examined his paintings alone and then next to their counterpart.  Students quickly realized  the striking similarities.   After watching a quick clip on you-tube shown below, students were amazed how large Kehinde Wiley works and the process behind his large scale paintings.  Wiley often chooses his models from the streets of his neighborhood in New York City and gets his inspiration from  portraits of powerful men and women from 17th-18th century master artists, such as Jacques Louis David and John Singer Sargent.  We watched how his  team of artists aided him through the art making process by  recruiting models and setting up  photo shoots to generate images for Wiley to use while painting.

Kehinde Wiley combined the theme of "Old" and "New" in his paintings, by taking a poses from powerful people  and vibrant pattern from the past with men and women of today showing off current clothing trends.   As seen above, after students created their self portrait from observation, they used their homework assignment which was from the previous week to draw a picture of a pattern that was from something "old" and "meaningful" to them and they incorporated that into the background of their self portraits.  In addition to focusing on Kehinde Wiley, we looked at one of my favorite Henri Matisse paintings which utilizes pattern as a main element in the work. 

                                                      

Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps, Kehinde Wiley 

                                                            

   

 Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Jaques-Louis David, 1801-1805

       

                                                                    

     Mrs. Waldorf Astor, Kehinde Wiley   

             

Mrs. Waldorf Astor , John Singer Sargent, 1909

Video of Kehinde Wiley

Henri Matisse, Red Room (Harmony in Red), 1908

Student Art Examples

Kindergarten Creates a Community

Kindergartners created people and animal stick puppets inspired by the works of  the work of Paul Klee after to conclude their unit on collage.  After several weeks learning about how to arrange, cut and distinguish between different textured paper, they used simple geometric cardboard shapes to create person puppet or animal.  

Student puppets

We kept these puppets in a safe place and several months later we began creating a background for them.  Students examined the collages by Harlem based artist Romare Bearden and brainstormed what is needed to make up a community.  We listed buildings, people, and transportation.  

  

Romare Bearden, The Block, 1971

Our kindergartners started their community collage  by using paper squares to cut and arrange to make buildings.  Next, students used patterned and painted paper to cut windows and doors.  After our buildings were complete, we worked on the transportation and created buses, cars,  and trucks.  The last step was adding in our puppet animals and people!

In addition to learning about Romare Bearden and how he created collages to represent the community he saw from his bedroom window, we also studied Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera

  

Diego Rivera mural depicting Mexico's history at the National Palace in Mexico City, 1921

Students creating the buildings for the communities

We discussed how similar to Bearden, community played an important role in Rivera’s artwork as well.  Our students pointed out by Rivera painting his art as large frescoes on buildings in public spaces, it allowed for everyone in the community to see the work and bring people together.  Students learned how Rivera often painted scenes to celebrate the past/culture of his people and to create a hopeful future.  We hope you enjoy our mural displayed by a popular location in the school for everyone to enjoy!

Summer Enrichment

This was my second year doing summer enrichment and it was a blast.  I really enjoy teaching this course over the summer, because it allows me to have a small group of kids for three hours a day for the entire week.  Unlike during the school year, we are not rushed for time and students can work at their own pace with much more one on one time from myself.  This year the course was called Storybook and Fairy-tale Character Printmaking and Paper Mache.  Last year, we  focused solely printmaking, but felt this summer I really wanted to transform our 2D work to 3D by the end of the week.  In addition to focusing on creating characters for our prints and sculptures, we used some of our extra time to practice multiple printmaking techniques shown below.

Day 1: We learned what printmaking is and how it made its debut in parts of Asia during the third century. Students started off with different stamping techniques which included cardboard, yarn on blocks, found objects, and vegetables. Once our found object prints dried, students went back into them with watercolor crayons to create a mixed media print.  Additionally, students used construction paper crayons to go back into their cardboard prints and add details.

Cardboard printing

Cardboard print with construction paper crayons

Vegetable print

Found object print with watercolor crayons

At the end of the day students created their collagraph plates inspired by a real or imaginary character.

Character Collagraph Plates

Day 2: The morning was spent printing our collagraph characters in a variety of color combinations. In the afternoon we first focused on monotypes and created a landscape for our characters using color pencils and placing our drawing under plexi, as a guide for us to paint directly on top of the plexi. Then, we learned about the Japanese printmaking tradition called GYOTAKU and did some fish printing.

Day 3: In the morning, students used gel pens and watercolor to add details to their fish prints and create a seascape.  We finished the day creating relief prints transforming themselves into a storybook or movie character.  

Student fish print seascapes

Student's sketch of self portrait with Medusa for relief print

Self Portrait Character Relief Prints

Egyptian cat goddess Bastet

Mice character from a story.

Skylander character

Hermione Granger from Harry Potter

Medusa

Scarlet Overkill from The Minions 2015 Movie

"Upside Down Man" imaginary character

Imaginary character

Maleficent

Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians

Day 4: Students used recycled materials such as newspaper, boxes, and paper towel rolls to create the armature for their character sculptures and then covered them in plaster strips as the casting method.

Day 5: The final day was spent painting our sculptures and then putting our accordion books together with our favorite prints.