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Thoughtful Self Portraits by Kids Creativity Sesh Students

Lily Self Portrait

Self portraits are a form of creative, artistic expression that dates back to the first mud-paintings on cave walls, and from classical painters and sculptors to contemporary artists. Most artists don’t create self portraits to sell. But it is an incredibly useful way to practice the arts of introspection, observance, self-knowledge and self-expression. For kids ages 9 to 13, introspection isn’t something they admit to doing regularly. I expected my students to be challenged, maybe uncomfortable, certainly pushed outside their comfort zones. They did some beautiful expressive work and I am sooo proud of them. Two students who could not attend today’s sesh will do this same project in one on ones with me later.

Watch for announcements and invitations to the 2nd Annual Young Voices exhibit opening November 8th where you will be able to see their artwork in person and meet the artists.

Jaz Self Portrait

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Today in our Kds Creativity Sesh we learned about self portraits and created two types of portraits.

First we watched a slideshow/collection of self portraits by artists both well known and unknown, including some by other students. Then we looked at some of the more unusual or creative self portraits and talked about why artists make self portraits and what they might be trying to express about themselves.

I gave my students an assignment to take lots of photos of themselves ( using a digital remote and an iPad on a stand) with the end result of 8 different emotional portraits. They chose their favorites to work with.

Next, the kids used either Photoshop or a mobile app to distill the color portraits to a black and white, posterized, sketch-ized or comic-ized image. We printed those on Bristol paper, glued them to very large sketch Bristol and they added paint and papers to create self portraits.

The students used some of the remaining expressive self-portrait photos to learn about enhancing the emotion of an image by the way one chooses to process the photo.  Some of their photographic results are above.

Also, please check out some of their mixed-media self portraits below and let them know through comments, how you respond to their endeavors. Thank you!

Jaz expressing anger, yelling, self

Ema Delight

 

Lily Oh No!

 

Adia Serious and Scientific

Some of the photo-enhanced selfies: 



8 comments

  1. Wanda Fandry says:

    WOW……… SOOOOOO CREATIVE. They all did AMAZING self portraits !!!! Can’t wait until the twins are old enough to join the fun.

    • Wanda, I am going to be starting my women’s Sunday afternoon art sessions in September. Watch for a blog post this week with a schedule of topics and dates. The first 2 sessions will be doing self portraits and I am REALLY looking forward to guiding adults through this process.

  2. Phyllis Lefohn says:

    Extraordinarily creative and “real.” Love looking at the work of these talented young artists! Thanks for sharing!

  3. Mary Jean Martin says:

    wow! THese pieces are all so imaginative and such powerful images. I can’t wait to see them in person.

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