Portraits in a Box

I always get a kick out of portrait making with kids whether we are studying the placement of the features  on the face for the first time or learning how to draw the actual shapes. It’s always interesting to see how young children approach creating a face at different developmental stages.

Our younger students (18M-4Y) were given pre-drawn face templates to choose from along with pre-drawn eyes and mouths. After choosing the template the younger children then colored in the eyes in mouth with marker and colored the face template with paint. We used Biocolor paint from Discount School Supplies because of it’s tacky quality it can be used as glue as well.

Throughout each class time we used mirrors to check our own face to  help the students recognize the features and their positions on faces. Prompting them with questions like “How many eyes do we have?” or “How many ears do you have and where are they?” or “Where does the nose go?” etc.

The older masters classes were given the templates only  as a reference to draw their own faces entirely. These were more geared towards self portraiture.
Face shape stencils were provided for students who needed a jumpstart.

Final products will vary!

Encourage them to paint in the backgrounds as well! Really makes the final results pop!

For masters classes we created shadow boxes to house the portraits, out of USPS shipping boxes. Just cut a rectangle shape out of one of the large flat sides. We used gesso to cover the text.

We then had the older kids glue on decorations to their boxes, using cut up straws, foam stickers, pom poms, and varied sequins.

We used double stick tape to place the masterpieces into their corresponding shadow box frames!