Radiant feelings: early childhood.

Significant Problem

It's surprising how often the motif of a sun face appears in product design, advertising, folk art, and even children's art. In this lesson, students found inspiration in a display of sun faces. The challenge presented to the students was to create a sun face that conveyed strong emotion.

Essential Concepts

1. Expressing feelings in art.

2. Observing facial features and expressions.

3. Experimenting with exaggeration.

4. Understanding radial designs.

Materials

12 x 18" (31 x 46 cm) drawing paper, cardboard circle templates, pencils, oil pastels, a variety of illustrations of sun faces

Guiding Practice

Prior to introducing this lesson, I displayed a variety of sun faces in the classroom. We began by naming all the emotions students could remember feeling. I listed these on the board. With partners, we practiced expressing these emotions with our faces I asked partners to specifically notice what happened to the mouth, eyes, and eyebrows when we made these faces, and also how the wrinkles in our faces changed as we changed expressions. Then we carefully examined the display of sun faces. Students identified expressions on the sun faces, and noticed differences in how the suns' rays were depicted. I then demonstrated and guided students in drawing eyes, noses, and mouths in ways that expressed emotions in exaggerated and stylized ways. I gave students cardboard templates to make a large circle on the paper. We practiced different radial designs for the rays. I encouraged them to exaggerate the facial features and to make every part of the face express strong emotion. They roughly sketched their designs with pencil and then used oil pastels to complete them.

Assessing Learning

Did the face express an obvious emotion? Did all parts of the face help to express the intended emotion?

ClipCard submitted by Carol Horst, an artist in residence at Golden Hills Elementary School in Tehachapi, California.