Portrait Art Lesson for School Calendar Time (4)

After years of creating School Calendar Art with my classes, a few years ago I switched to creating the art on A3 paper as opposed to the smaller paper provided by the company (approx. - A4) This was because the calendar is something that parents pay money to buy and sometimes they buy several copies for grandparents etc. Then they hang this up on display for a year, so I felt the artwork needed to be of good quality. Working on A3 also meant that students then had the artwork to keep and frame as well.

I scan the finished work in on our school copier and email the folder to the company. It sure saved them a lot of time too. But you need to carefully label each PDF/image so that there is no confusion on the other end. And of course only email the ordered artwork, not the whole class. As I already scan the work to share with parents on line before they order, this is not a big deal.

Now moving on to day #4.
With the students, we viewed examples of Eden's work and then began testing and experimenting with these pattern ideas on the back of the photocopy print, in pencil.

Kids never cease to amaze me with their risk taking and creativity. I felt they really did a great job.

Next I asked them to start exploring colour schemes independently, while I called them to the dye table to add the liquid water colour to parts of their paintings. This is to cover large sections with an under-colour. We started with painting the skin tones first.

Here are some photos of dye work on my Teacher Model:

I think you'll agree - they look promising so far :) The students were also asked to locate a motto or quote that they strongly related to. I asked them to research up font styles and explore variations of how they would represent their motto on their picture. They have really come up with some gems.
On the other hand I am still waiting for my daughter to give me her quote to insert into my teacher model. Ha ha - teacher's kids hey :)

As the students resolved their patterns on their draft (photo print) they transfer these over to their good copy. We also talked about how they could show the 'magic' or 'energy' that exudes from their prop.

Hopefully we can move onto the marker patterns next.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you are getting lots of ideas for teaching art within your classes too.

You can read about our next steps in our process HERE.

You can find my back to school portrait unit - This Is Me! inspired by the art of Eden Gosier, in my TPT store One Teacher's Journey - HERE.
It is also available from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

Thank you for visiting,

Timea