The 3rd grade artists finished their proportional, self-portraits and have moved onto how emotion is expressed on the face.  In preparation for exaggeration masks, students have been taking turns posing and drawing each other expressing an emotion on their faces.  These studies will translate into exaggerations and paper mache masks in weeks to come.

I was interested in the variety within the early sketches.  Here is a small sample from Ms. Adams’ class.

*  Note:  This is a sample of the self-portraits created by the 3rd grade artists.

After studying the self-portrait work of Frida Kahlo, 3rd grade artists created self-portraits of their own using mirrors and proportional lines and measurements to make accurate faces.  They created symbolic self-portraits on the frames around their faces including words and pictures of people, places and things that are important to them in their lives.  This was a challenging project but the results were worth it.  Nice job 3rd grade!

The 3rd grade has been exploring personal symbols and thinking about how to represent ideas using pictures.  As part of their self-portrait project, the artists are creating frames that will include symbols of people, places and activities that are important to them.

Frame segments for self-portraits.

Third grade artists have been considering ideas related to who they are with other people as well as who they are when they are alone.  Discussion has included personal symbolism, how to read a picture for clues as to the meaning, self-portrait and using proportion to create a likeness.  We have looked at the work of Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist who worked extensively with personal symbolism and self-portraits.

Frida Kahlo, self-portrait

Students have created pre-instruction self-portraits and are now learning how to use proportional measurements to make a face that is more accurate.  When finished, these proportional, self-portraits will be framed by symbols students chose to express more about what is important to them and who they are.

Way to go 3rd grade!