On the second day of the self portrait camp through North Vancouver Community Arts Council, I had the students do a blind contour drawing of themselves. It is an exercise to help them work on their observational skills. I also believe this is an exercise to help them grasp the concept of abstract art, which I find with younger children sometimes difficult to embrace.
Not that this was not difficult for some to embrace too!
The more analytical the child is by nature, the more difficulty they seem to have embracing this style of drawing. Out of the eleven children, two had tears of frustration because it did not "look right" but once I told them to go ahead and draw while looking, that they succeeded by at least trying the style, they were able to take a deep breath and try again. A couple of them modified the exercise and ended up with something definitely in the same style but also accommodating their need for more control.
That is OK by me. I feel my job is to show them different techniques that they can use in ways that work for them and I encourage them to incorporate those things into their drawing with whatever modifications work best for them
On the other hand, there were many children who giggled as they looked at the final results on their paper and really enjoyed doing several practice rounds prior to doing a final image on the water color paper.
How did I do it? I handed each student a paper plate with a sharpie pen stuck in the middle. I told them to hold the pen in their hand underneath the plate. I had to show a couple of the six year olds what I meant, but once they understood, they had no more issues. They then had a photographic image of themselves that they looked at to draw blindly. I emphasized that I wanted them to draw off the paper to help them loosen up their drawing and "draw big". This is very important with the younger students who tend to keep things small. I also stressed that they should not lift up their pen and draw with one continuous line. Again, some embraced this more than others but in the end, it all worked out fine.
Once they were comfortable with what the results would look like and tried it several times on practice paper, they took their photographs to the table and did a final drawing on watercolor paper. I then gave them liquid watercolors in the primary colors and told them to change colors whenever they hit an intersecting line. I showed them how to create new colors out of the primary ones given to them. We talked about how they could use water to change the tone of the same color and how a paper towel could be used to create texture by dabbing away some of the wet paint also.
I loved that the students discovered and share amongst each other how to splatter the paint on the paper and you will see several examples of it in the artworks below. I love seeing students who were once strangers start to bond over the common interest of creating great art, becoming good friends by the end of the camp week.
This was a great project to bridge into upcoming projects where the students will create self portraits inspired by other unusual artistic styles. That they can alter their image but still look like themselves by incorporating features that make them unique individuals.
Like a flower headband
freckles
curly hair
or a sly smile.
I am quite pleased with the results of this project and even students who were not buying into the process when it was just sharpie on paper liked their end results once they added the color.
6 year old
8 year old
6 year old
10 year old
6 year old
7 year old
7 year old
10 year old
8 year old
6 year old
This is so awesome. I love how art opens the mind to new thought process and control/loss of control. It is so important for children to look at life in new perspectives. Art gives us such opportunity to explore and be creative, open doors in our minds and allow us to have fun as well as learn to stretch. Keep up the great work.
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