Pint-sized portraits.

Even though most young students are not developmentally ready to approach portraiture as objectively as older students may be, they express their intuitive responses to the subjects of portraits they make and enjoy exploring their own features when drawing themselves. With this in mind, I developed a two-part lesson to compare approaches--drawing a model with little discussion beforehand and drawing self-portraits after careful examination with mirrors. This lesson was designed to work within a forty-five minute time frame.

Materials

* colored construction paper; white
drawing paper, one per student;
and white drawing paper, two per
student
* colored markers
* scissors
* glue
* portraits of children
* small mirrors, one per student

Introducing the Portrait

I began by asking if students recognized the word "portrait" and its meaning. We talked about their school portraits and how a portrait could be a photograph, a drawing, a painting, or some other kind of art. Together we decided a portrait was a "picture of a person." We then compared and contrasted several reproductions of portraits of children from different time periods.

With no other discussion or direction, I asked students to draw a portrait of me (a handy model). I distributed pieces of white drawing paper and markers and then sat on a stool at the front of the class for about five minutes while students drew. Some looked at me very carefully, while others never looked at me at all.

Into the Looking Glass 

For the second activity, I distributed small mirrors, one for each student, and asked them to look carefully at their faces. Together we looked at and talked about the shape of the face, the width of the neck, the shape of the eyes, the details of the iris, pupil, and eyelid, the position of eyebrows, nose, mouth, ears, and the length and texture of the hair. I distributed white drawing paper and asked them to draw themselves, again with markers, encouraging them to fill the entire page. Some used the mirrors; others never looked at them again.

Embellishment

Since one of the portrait reproductions we had looked at showed a boy wearing a hat, I suggested that students add details to their self-portraits using scraps of colored construction paper. The results were delightful. Students were proud of their self-portraits and happy to talk about the reasons for their choices. As one might suppose, the self-portrait, created after one experience and discussion, showed more detail than the portraits. As a result of this lesson, students recognized that portraits are pictures of people and that there are differences between portraits and self-portraits.

NATIONAL STANDARDS

Students explore and understand prospective content for works of art.

WEB LINKS

I've Just Seen a Face: Portraits, 208.254.21.236/view_lesson_plan. asp?id=270

Nancy Walkup is an art teacher at W.S. Ryan Elementary in Denton, Texas, and the editor of SchoolArts magazine, [e-mail]. [e-mail]