Self-portraits are one of the trickiest things to teach. Students become rather self-conscious when their faces don’t instantly look exactly like them, and it can really hinder the learning process. Attaching an artist or style of art to a self-portrait can help engage students further, and I’ve developed three self-portrait projects sure to please (at any level)!
Surreal Selfies: What better way to inspire creative self-portraits than through a study of surrealism? The project is best suited to middle and high school students with access to cell phones. After spending a class period discussing surrealism, I asked my 7th graders to take a selfie and apply a Snapchat filter. Students saved the images and emailed them to me and printed them. We learned to grid and transfer images using the printed images. I was thoroughly impressed with the end result, and even more impressed that their knowledge of surrealism really stuck!
Surreal Selfies: What better way to inspire creative self-portraits than through a study of surrealism? The project is best suited to middle and high school students with access to cell phones. After spending a class period discussing surrealism, I asked my 7th graders to take a selfie and apply a Snapchat filter. Students saved the images and emailed them to me and printed them. We learned to grid and transfer images using the printed images. I was thoroughly impressed with the end result, and even more impressed that their knowledge of surrealism really stuck!
Frida Kahlo Inspired Self-Portraits: Frida Kahlo is said to have viewed self-portraits as autobiographies. What better inspiration for students? I spent a class period discussing Kahlo’s work (carefully choosing the most appropriate of images) focusing on her honesty in image, rather than seeking perfection. After doing a few practice sketches, students used oil pastels to draw their self-portraits. They splattered watered-down metallic paint on construction paper backgrounds and cut out their portraits to paste on top. All in, this assignment took four class periods, and all of my students were happy with the outcome!
Jacob Lawrence Self Portraits: A prominent African-American artist, Lawrence was a real storyteller with his paintings. Self-portraits inspired by him encourage students to tell their own stories, emphasizing the things that are important to them. Lawrence’s painting style also lends itself well to students still learning how to paint their faces.