These portraits are inspired by "Portrait of Dora Maar" by Pablo Picasso - famous for rendering multipule perspectives in his portraiture. 4th graders used color symbolism and color theory to show us a hint of their inner selves. Take a peek!
Portrait of Dora Maar is a painting Picasso did of his girlfriend of the time in 1937. There are many important things to notice about this painting, besides the dual perspective of frontal and side view of Dora.
We looked at the "apple and lemon" on her cheek, possibly hinting at the subject's sweet and sour personality. Below is a funny parody of the idea, drawn with a hamburger on the cheek.
We discussed the colors Picasso chose, why he might have chosen them and what they could tell us about her. This is called emotional color/expressive color/color symbolism. We looked also at the simplified way Picasso renders her clothing using angles and sharp edges, and her long witch like fingers & nails.
The project started with 2 pieces of 9x12 white paper and pencil. Everyone drew an oval, and drew center guidelines to prepare us for laying out where our facial features would go, in a frontal view. Next, we switched to the other piece of paper and drew a side profile, noting the foreheads bulge a little big outwards because our frontal lobe is located here, how the edges of our lips may not be aligned vertically with the tips of our noses.
We then cut the side profile out and glued to the frontal view - and finally outlined with black paint.
Second week was focusing on color, how to use oil pastels like paint, to layer color combinations to create tints, shades and neutrals. Students experimented with this process on the backs of their papers, and I showed them how to label which colors they used next to each color "swatch".
Learning facial proportion is a crucial skill to learn, because it progresses the young artist away from simplified self-portraits with the iconic "u-shaped" mouth and dimples, etc into a more refined, realistic approach at looking at yourself and people/things in general.
