Starting The Year With Self-Portraits

Students at The Foundations School kicked off the 2023-2024 school year with a special project. In every grade, students created self-portraits using different techniques and styles that are appropriate for their grade level. The completed projects now hang on the walls around the school, including a wall dedicated to staff portraits!

Kindergarten

Kindergarten completed two projects. One group of students used watercolor paper to transfer colors from tissue paper. Then they glued back-and-white pictures of themselves over their colorful background.  The second group of students constructed representations of themselves inspired by Piet Mondrian’s use of expressionism, primary colors, and basic geometric shapes. 

First Grade

Our first grade students created larger-than-life portraits to represent their big personalities! They started by painting and decorating representations of their head and shoulders before taking a picture of them holding the portrait in front of them, so that the lower half of their body is represented by the picture.

Second Grade

The second grade students did two self-portrait projects. In the first project, students drew on paper with colored pencils of what they think they look like. Then, they assembled images from magazines that they felt symbolized who they are. In the second project, students worked in pairs to create outlines of themselves while lying flat. They then worked independently to add details with markers and construction paper to explain how they believe they are seen by others.

Third Grade

The third grade class used drawings tools such as crayons, markers, and colored pencils, as well as model magic, to create self-portraits on sheets of paper.

Fourth/Fifth Grade

Our fourth and fifth grade students assembled and painted cardboard pieces, using shapes, color, texture, and pattern to create abstract representations of themselves.

Staff

Staff used a digital tool to create word art images that reflected their values and interests. Staff chose a shape for their image as well as the words inside. They were able to experiment with font, color, and size of the words.