We had a short lesson about van Gogh and Frieda Kahlo and discussed in which way the artists incorporated information about themselves, their emotions, their likes and dislikes into their self-portraits.
We compared earlier works of the artists with later works and tried to find differences.
When looking at van Gogh the kids said he looked "angry", "sad", "cold" and "unhappy".
I told the kids a bit about Frieda Kahlo's story, her childhood disease that had left her with a deformed foot and the cable car accident a few years later, that left her permanently disabled.
When looking at the second portrait the kids said she looked "sad", "in pain", very stiff" and "unhappy".
Then I pulled out a little happier self-portrait of my 4 year old daughter and showed it to the kids.
I asked them if they could tell me something about this little person.
The kids said; "she looks happy", "she loves hearts", "she likes princesses" and "she loves to write".
I told the kids that they had just described my daughter perfectly, without ever having met her.
I wanted to relay to them that a self-portrait is more than just a picture of your body, it's also a window into your soul, a reflection of who you are and what you like.
Now it was their turn to be the artist and create.
We use these instructions (by Art Projects for Kids) as guidelines, double traced the self-portrait with black Sharpies and then used oil pastels to fill in the color.
After the self-portrait was completed we did a watered down Temepra wash for the background.
Wait until you see the amazing results the kids created!
They were on fire and made the most amazing portraits and all of them enjoyed their Art Attack very much :)
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