Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Picasso Faces - Pre-K and Kindergarten
















You may have noticed that I love to do different versions of cubist self portraits or "Picasso faces." What a treat it was this week to introduce my group of 5 and 6 year olds to one of the most iconic and revolutionary artists in history. I explained to them that rather than painting a picture of a person the way you see them (like when you take their picture), Picasso wanted to show 2 or more different sides of the person all at once. Group response: smiles and giggles. Great, I've got them! We did the basic step by step lesson to draw our faces: large "U" shape for the face and add hair with just a few lines with oil pastel. Now for the important line down the face that really makes it Picasso-esque. It went something like," a long bent line for our forehead, now draw a slide for the nose, a sideways line, 2 bumbs for the lips and another long bent line for the chin. They did a wonderful job following along. Next we talked about our skin color. I asked what they saw: peach, tan, brown, ect.. I told them that Picasso was bored with painting with realistic colors. We are going to use wild and fun colors: red, blue, green ect.. More laughs and hoorays! The only rule was to paint the 2 sides of their face different colors. "What about the eyes Miss Mary?" On a separate paper they drew bold eye shapes and a Picasso type mouth following basic instructions. They colored these and cut them out. Now they were to glue them to their face, but were encouraged not to put the eyes side by side - another Picasso trademark. Some of the children painted their background, others opted to cut it out and will paint a separate background to glue their face. Once again, with this age group, there is a wide spectrum of skill level with fine motor control. So I like to offer alternatives based on this, so all the kids can succeed.






11 comments:

  1. Looks like a great idea! I think I will use this for a kindergarten art lesson
    Thanks!
    Melissa

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  2. your website has just saved me! tired of my duaghter's public school elementary kindergarten class not getting enough art i impetuously volunteered to do an art lesson on Picasso. After 2 hours of searching the web for something doable i finally found you. thank you for doing what you do and sharing it with the public.

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  3. Excellent! Definitly I'm going to do this with my stuydents. Thanks

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  4. Oh my god, keep your children interested in art at all costs. There a genuine spark of genius here.

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  5. This is GREAT for Art Masterpiece! Thank you for the cool project idea!!

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  6. I used this lesson and posted about it http://inartclass.blogspot.com/2012/03/first-grade-picasso-portraits.html
    Thanks for the lesson!

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  7. This is fantastic, i'm panning to use it next week. We are also creating Picasso faces by cutting up magazines and pictures and placing them on a coloured oval shape.

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  8. I am doing a project in my college class, having to do with kindergarten art lessons, and this is perfect!!! Thank you for the A !!!!

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  10. My kids absolutely love them! They are more worried about not being good enough rather than not being able to do it

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  11. thanks so much for your great ideas. Simple to follow and easy to do with 5 year olds as you described how you did it. Very happy with the success of my kids art work. thanks

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I appreciate your comments and feedback!