Self Portrait Center

It’s July and we’re on to the Art Studio theme from Mother Goose Time. Our first lesson was all about the self portrait. See how we put together a self portrait center and worked on creating our own self portraits like famous artists of the past.

This month your child will explore the beauty and creative freedom of art through the studies of shapes and colors. He will explore world famous artists like Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and others. Your child will explore different art forms, brush strokes, art tools, and discover his own way to use art for expressive purposes. Each week, he will investigate a different country’s art, culture, and traditions. This artistic adventure is sure to touch each child in a unique way.
https://www.mothergoosetime.com/themes/

We spend less time with circle time and calendar activities in the summer but the calendar and theme poster are an important part of our curriculum. Everyone wants to know what days are holidays or birthdays. We always write the numbers on the calendar and usually someone wants to put the day’s number up. Sometimes we have to do a little catch up and put a week’s worth of calendar numbers….

Art Studio

The Art Studio theme is awesome as it incorporates culture, art and history. Plus it’s fun!

Week One: Art in Italy
Week Two: Art in France
Week Three: Art in the Netherlands & Spain
Week Four: Art in England

Art in Italy

The first week of Art Studio starts with self-portraits and portraits. Right away the children are introduced to famous art pieces like one of Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait and the Mona Lisa.

Here’s the theme web for the month and the topics we’re covering for week one, Art in Italy.

I set up an art center for the Self-Portrait Invitation to Create so each child could take some time to look at their self in the mirror and draw.

Our Art Studio Self Portrait Center

a mirror
pencils
crayons
markers
Frida Kahlo’s Self Portrait with Bonito, 1941 Inspiration Photo
The book, The Colors of Us

Lesson 1 Self-Portrait

The Mother Goose Time teacher guides are beautiful and so inspiring.

Mother Goose Time teacher guide lesson plans for day 1 of Art Studio

Honestly, there are so many activities, we usually can’t get to them all.

I thought about providing collage materials for this activity but sometimes it’s better to keep it simple. Otherwise they would focus on gluing materials instead of trying to create shapes in portraits.

Drawing people can be hard and overwhelming. I remember being in elementary art class and feeling frustrated about being expected to draw a realistic person. I think the younger children maybe have an easier time trying to draw a face because they just “do” instead of overthinking it.

During snack time when I had everyone’s attention, I talked about drawing faces. When we look at Frida Kahlo’s portrait, it looks hard to do, doesn’t it? She made a beautiful portrait of herself!

How to Draw a Face

Let’s take a closer look – what is the shape of a face? Circle or oval. We can all draw a circle or oval! Look at the eyes? What shape are they? What color? How many do we have? What else do you have on your face? So it’s not so hard! I found out the dry erase markers are all dried out so I didn’t have many options for colors! So a green self-portrait it was!

This activity is probably best for the older children but we can walk the younger ones through it. Look in the mirror. What do you see? What color is your hair? Can you draw the hair?

I love that each one was excited to take a turn and work on their portrait.

Each child is different and beautiful!

I included The Colors Of Us book at the art table because it has many wonderful artistic drawings of people. It really highlights how we are all different.

The book is providing inspiration for this drawing!

I love how it inspired this boy’s work! It’s not exactly a self portrait but that’s okay! I was thrilled to see that he was inspired and created this amazing drawing based on an image he liked. Green hair? Why not!

drawing based on "The Colors of Us" book

Mix and Match Portraits

Day Two of Art Studio featured the Mona Lisa portrait and was about Portraits. With the shortened holiday week, we combined both days activities. The Mix and Match Portraits booklets (shown in the photo below) were a hit!