positive self portraits

The Fifth Grade students created self portrait pencil drawings. The students studied the general proportions of the human face, and they looked in the mirror and drew themselves from observation. A full range of values were added to the drawings to give the portraits form. The students also studied graffiti art, and we discussed the meaning, medium, stylistic choices and problems involved with this type of art making. We decided that there is a lot to learn from the style graffiti artists use in their work. The students identified positive words describing them, and they painted these words in graffiti style in the background of their self portraits.