Visual Arts

Emily Wilkes

Foundation to Year 6 Self-Portraits

What Makes you Unique?

The students of Greenvale Primary School have been investigating our unique qualities. Self-portraits were the perfect way to demonstrate our understandings of our special characteristics. It’s always amazing to see the progression from Foundation to Year 6!

Foundation: We looked at how to draw our facial features using shapes, lines and colours.

Year 1&2: We learnt how to draw our feelings using different facial expressions. We tried very hard to include our special facial features such as missing teeth or glasses.

Year 3&4: We created a self-portrait titled 'The Real Me.' We looked at how to portray our physical characteristics (outside) as well as our personality (inside) using words, images and colour. We focussed on colour mixing with paints to make our skin tones.

Year 5&6: We created mixed media self-portraits. The students took photographs of themselves. They experimented with different poses and chose one which best reflected their personality. They then traced their photo onto acetate, colouring in the details with paint pen. They attached their portrait to a painted background. We learnt about colour theory (complementary and analogous) and discussed how colour can express imagination and feelings by distortion and exaggeration.