self portraits in pen and paint (check out the background)

Self portraits are a time honoured way to assess development and growth in kindergarten.

They are also a wonderful tool to exercise observation skills, a vehicle of self expression, and way to develop the artist self.

They also transform a bulletin board into a gallery.

Step 1. Learn from experts.

We watched a couple of Youtube videos.

We remembered that this was only one artist's way of drawing a person. We learn from how other people draw and paint, but we all have our own style.

Step 2. Draw a self portrait.

We used half an 8 1/2x11" piece of heavier bond copy paper.

The kids could choose to draw with a jiffy marker, a pencil and then trace over their lines, or a pencil and I would trace over their lines.

When the drawing was done, we were ready to paint.

Get out the paints.

For this project, we used tempera paint cakes, or paint pucks.

I set the paint up with different paint colours on different tables. I wanted the kids to be thoughtful and intentional about what colours they used.

Purposeful movement in the classroom also helps wee artists focus.

When the paintings were dry, I cut them out to draw attention to the shape of each child's portrait.

make the backgrounds

I saw a photo on Pinterest of kids' paintings on a background of their names. (Can't manage to find the link right now, but will add it as soon as I track it down.) I just LOVED the idea, and had to do it with my kids' paintings.

I am sure that there are lots of ways to do make name backgrounds, but this is how I did it.

• put 1 1/2" border all around the page (I wanted to mount the background on 8 1/2x11" scrapbook paper, so needed to be able to cut the background smaller)

• centred the text and typed the students name, leaving 3 spaces between each name

• after I filled a row, copied and pasted for the rest of the page

• I used KG Miss Kindergarten font

glue everything together

The painted portraits were glued onto the name backgrounds, and the backgrounds were glued onto coloured scrapbook card.