Vocabulary Words: Reproduction, portrait, pose, color mixing

This was an excellent lesson that introduced my 6th graders to many famous artists who painted portraits. We spent 2 class periods looking at portraits before students chose one to replicate. They then posed as if they were the model in their chosen portrait. I took their picture with my digital camera and printed them onto drawing paper. The finished prints were 8 1/2"x11". Students painted directly onto their photos, trying to match the colors as closely as possible. The most successful portraits were those in which the students left the face alone and didn't try to paint over it.

To finish these we created frames by measuring a 1 1/2" border on paper, drawing decorative designs with glue, and painting gold or silver after the glue had dried.