Inspired by Edvard Munch
I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.
Edvard Munch
This week my third grade students created self portraits inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream. We added our own twist by using the tried and true straw blow watercolor painting for the hair. I love this project because it combines drawing portraits with the process art of straw blow painting.
Day one – Drawing the Portrait
After a discussion about the artwork we set off to draw our portraits. Students used mirrors to look at themselves and what their face would look like with their mouths open. We used a simple guide for the placement of facial features and proportion and set off drawing very lightly with pencil.
After drawing the outline of their portrait, students designed their t-shirt or whatever they were wearing that day. Finally, they chose skin tone crayons to color in the face and neck. It is important to have some multicultural or skin toned crayons on hand in the art room. I love the people colored crayons that I got from Lakeshore. The students took great pride in choosing their exact skin color.
Day two – Fun Stuff! Blowing the Paint!
The second day we set up our workspace for the straw blow painting. I placed a palette of liquid watercolor paint between every two kids. We practiced dipping our straws in the paint and placed ONE drop on the top of the head and tapped out the excess paint in the straw on to a paper towel. This step is important because any paint left in the straw will SPLAT on the paper instead of streaming up the paper.
Once the drop was in place, the students blew air through the straw to direct the paint to travel up the page. Blow painting with straws is a fun activity for children because it provides such a great opportunity to experiment with color and color mixing and different ways to paint other than using a paintbrush.
This is a show stopping project, kids love the process and parents love the product. I love it because it is a perfect fall portrait project that combines technique with all of the above!
