Lego-style Self-Portraits (3rd/4th)

EQ: What is a self-portrait? How can personal style influence one's artwork?

The lego-style self-portrait project is a fun two-day lesson that is great for pretty much all elementary grade-levels!
I began by talking to my students about what a self-portrait is (an artistic self-representation that an artist creates of themselves) and then looked at a variety of famous artist's self-portraits. One of the big ideas I wanted my students to take away from looking at all the famous examples, was that very often an artist's self-portrait is very reflective of his or her personal style.
For example, Vincent van Gogh used the same type of iconic brushstrokes in his self-portrait as he used in a wide variety of his other paintings (like "Starry Night").

Artist Joan Miro used a similar abstracted surrealist style in his self-portrait much like the style he used in his other paintings.

So when it came time for my students to create their self-portraits, I wanted them to work in a style that reflected their personal interests - and thus the lego self-portrait project began!

As much as I HATE giving students a template to work from, I thought it was necessary in this case (due to time constraints and personal frustration levels) for them to have a framework to build off of, so I gave them a printout of a blank lego person to put under their papers that they could see through to build off of. The examples below were pulled from my 3rd and 4th grade classes that I had this week.





Mr. Rogers???

The kids absolutely love this project! Definitely a must do! :)


5 comments

  1. I'm planning on doing a lesson like these we my 5th graders! I'm hoping to use color pencil so they can add some shading to give the Lego person depth. Your kids did a great job with this lesson!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those are super cute!! Do you happen to have the template? I am terrible at drawing:( and would love to do this with my kiddos for beginning of the year

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course! Send me an email at melindagram@gmail.com and I'll send it to you! :)

      Delete
  3. Could I possible get a copy of the template too? What a great idea!!
    akmoore71@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete