Portraits as puzzles.

In designing an art lesson for the third grade, we took into consideration the curriculum guide and the focus of the classroom unit--the seven principles of Kwanzaa. We decided to link the two together with a portrait unit emphasizing the design principle of unity and the Kwanzaa principle of purpose.

The first lesson taught students how to draw a realistic portrait. Students spent approximately four sixty-minute classes drawing and coloring a realistic portrait of the person across from them. We used this time to explain shape and the proportions of the face. When the portraits were finished, the students cut them out and assembled them into a realistic class portrait. This experience prepared students to go beyond realism and to create an abstract portrait in the next lesson.

Facing Abstraction 

In the second lesson, we asked students to think of shapes that weren't realistic for the parts of the face. They then invented a portrait with non-realistic shapes in place of the realistic shapes they had been using. With this lesson we defined abstract in terms of not realistic, but by using Picasso's abstract portrait reproductions, we showed students that they still have all the parts of a face. Students then distinguished between realistic and nonrealistic colors in the context of portraits of people. They also decided what purpose colors would have in a portrait. Students carefully painted their portraits with the colors of their choice.

A Piece of the Puzzle 

From the beginning, students were aware that they would be creating a puzzle with their portrait. They understood that they had to finish their portrait in order to have a part in the puzzle. The puzzle consisted of four inch boxes that the students constructed. Each portrait was cut into six squares and one was glued to each side of the box. From that point, six students could arrange and rearrange their boxes to create a composite, abstract portrait of their group with several variables. They all had different solutions to the same problem.

As a result of this unit, the students learned how to recognize the similarities and differences between abstract and realistic art, became competent in creative visual expression, acquired the ability to make aesthetic judgment, used problem solving skills and techniques, and developed awareness and understanding of our cultural heritage.

Patricia Capozzi is an art teacher at Robert M. LaFollette Elementary School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the time this article was written, Anna Ruszkiewicz was her student teacher from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.