Portraits

Summer Camp plans for the field trip to Annmarie Garden:
(this is the first of 2 weeks; the second week is Sculpture)


Booklist:


























Wednesday – introduce topic

Use the book Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni to review color mixing. Refer to the color wheel and show how two primary colors combine to make a secondary color.

Activity 1: Make homemade sidewalk chalk. Allow the children to make their chalk a primary color or add different powdered tempera paints and shake vigorously. They will not see how the colors have combined until tomorrow when they break open the eggs.

Further explore color mixing within the primary (yellow, red, blue) and secondary colors (orange, green, purple) by making ice cubes with a few drops of watercolor paints added. Once the ice cubes have frozen, you can combine several in a cup – write on the outside how many of each color you are putting in the cup – and watch them melt and combine to see the resulting color. For example, what color does 1 red + 1 orange + 1 green make?

Activity 2: Make and freeze colored ice cubes for later exploration (today or tomorrow).


Read Pezzettinoby Leo Lionni. This book explores the question, “Who am I?” Tell the children that they will be painting their own self portraits today. Allow them to look at a selection of books illustrated by famous artists (such as Sharing with Renoir (Mini Masters), Sunday with Seurat (Mini Masters), A Picnic with Monet (Mini Masters), A Magical Day with Matisse (Mini Masters), all from the series by Julie Merberg) to see different painting styles.

Activity 3: Have the children paint their self portraits using any style they wish. Have them first sign the back of the paper with their name and age.



Thursday – explore topic

Begin by reading My Mama Had a Dancing Heartby Libba Moore Gray or The Giving Treeby Shel Silverstein. Today we will be doing self portraits of the inside of ourselves. We all know what you look like on the outside – how would you describe the inside of you: your hopes, feelings, and dreams?

What was the girl’s mother (or the tree) like on the outside? What was she (or he) like on the inside? As you lead the discussion, write the students’ comments on a large piece of chart paper. Make two columns labeled Outside Portrait and Inside Portrait. At the top of the chart, write the name of the character being discussed.





Give students some time to create T charts for themselves. This can be a private exercise – creating art is a very personal experience! If students seem to be struggling, lead another discussion modeling the process (which means that you do it yourself and talk your way through it out loud, as an example, so do a chart for yourself – what are you like on the outside, what are you like on the inside). But tell the students that their self portraits will be better if they have really thought about it first and don’t allow them to come to collect the collage materials until they have a completed T chart to show you.

Have as many kinds of collage materials as possible available to the students. Colored construction paper or plain white paper may be used as the background to their portrait, then encourage them to add torn tissue paper, pictures or words cut out from magazines, bits of ribbon, and other collage materials. Emphasize that they are doing an internal self portrait so the materials don’t need to form a human shape at the end. It can be done in any way that the student feels reflects him or herself. Again, have them first sign the back of their paper with their name and age.



Materials List

Color wheel
Snap-together plastic Easter eggs
Empty egg cartons
Petroleum jelly
Disposable cups
Plastic spoons
Plaster of Paris
Crafts-only measuring cup (¼ cup)
Cold water
Powdered tempera paint
Ice cube trays
Water
Watercolor paints (in squeeze bottles)
Popsicle sticks
Cups
Large piece of chart paper
Marker
Construction paper OR Plain white paper
Tissue paper, magazines, ribbon, and other collage materials
Scissors
Glue