“There’s love in your heart. And your heart is under your skin so you don’t need to draw it.”

Last week, friends added finishing touches to their self portraits!  Children used additional drawing materials to draw on top of the liquid watercolors once they had dried.  Friends studied their faces in mirrors and compared them to their self portraits.  Many children realized that they forgot important features and added them to make the portraits even more realistic!

Asa: I forgot to paint all my face!  I’ll color the rest in.

Anival: Why do I look like a monkey alien?  Oh well.  But I did make my beautiful legs.

Leah: Mouth? I forgot my mouth!

Amie: I added some pink around my mouth.  The color red is on my shirt so I’m making it red.  And I made two sleeves.  I made Jessica with me.  She’s my sleeping friend that I brought to school!

Adrian: I forgot to do my legs, and my underwear, and my pants, and my shoes.

Adele: My hair is light brown with golden.  And I need to add light pink to my mouth.

Ava: I love my face.  See?  This is my face!

Nanahi: I add a little bit of skin.

Hope: First I did my hair blue, but I actually need to make it dark.

Ahmari: Brains are under our skin.  Let me make my brain.

Nora: I drew my pink pants and I changed my pants to white because I’m wearing white pants today.

Connor: There’s love in your heart.  And your heart is under your skin so you don’t need to draw it.

Dayana: I’m drawing a rainbow dropping on me.  It feels like wet rain falling on my head.

Frances: I can make “WW” for my Wonder Woman shirt.

Kaylee: I’m making my dress red and sparkly.

Bella: I forgot to add my hands!

Theo: I see a small part of red in my eyes.  And white on both sides around the blue.  Now… my buttons.  They are brown and grey.  My shoes… wait, where are my shoes?  I forgot them but they are grey and green.  I didn’t draw my feet because they’re inside my shoes.

Africa Grace: I need to use white to make my leggings.

Emely: I’m making me in my own color!

Maya: I forgot to leave my teeth white.  And I only drew my bottom teeth!

Kyrie: I have to make my eyes darker brown.  And I need to add white to them!

Uhura: I need more peach on my cheeks.

Jax: I need my eyes to be brown.  And my boogers.

“I got a teeny tiny brush to use for my teeny tiny ears!”

Last week, we continued to read The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler and began discussing different colors that we noticed on our face and body.  Friends used liquid watercolors to mix their skin colors and added them to the self portraits that they began the previous week.  Children selected from a variety of paint brushes, based on the amount of detail they wanted to add, versus filling in large areas of their face with paint.

Theo: Sometimes my hair is a little bit this color.  I need a lot of different colors for my face.

Frances: What does “layering” mean?  Is adding water layering?  I’ll try just adding a little water.  I made my skin lighter!

Hope: My hair is darker than my face.

Mina: Water makes the colors lighter.

Asa: I need mostly water and a little bit of paint.  The paint is foggy.  It makes it so I can’t see my nose.

Noah: Big brush for the head, little brush for my eyes.  And my hair.

Jayden: It’s me!  It looks like my skin.

Amie: Rinse, rinse, rinse again to make it lighter.

Lenin: This color like coffee.

Lorenzo: This is a fire brown!  It has red in it.

Leba: I’m using the darkest dark for my hair.

Isaiah: I’m using a little bit of water.  It got light brown.

Aria: I got a teeny tiny brush to use for my teeny tiny ears.

Farah: My hair is kind of blond.  One of my ears looks stuck in my hair.  And my lips are kind of red.

Maya: This brush is not tiny, it’s medium.  I’m using a skinny brush for my mouth.

Uhura: My skin is honey skin.  And my tongue is pink.

Kyrie: I see my hair is dark black.  My teeth are white.  I know I have blood in my eye.  I could add that.

Jax: We have different skin.  I’m light brown but I’m darker brown than Africa Grace.

Africa Grace: Yeah, mine is lighter.  My mom has light skin, too.  I’ve seen wood that’s the color of my skin.  I don’t see my skin color but maybe I can mix it.  I’m gonna add red because I see red on my arms and I need dark for my hair.

Below are some scanned images of self portraits in process!

 

“Skin is so you don’t have your skeleton out!”

Last week, friends started working on their self portraits in the Studio!  We began by reading The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler.  This book has rich text and illustrations, so we broke it up into three parts to use throughout our self portrait work.

Next, we began examining our faces in mirrors.  Friends noticed shapes, colors and textures, while also sharing what they knew about skin and why we have it.

“Why do we have skin?”

Kyrie: You need skin so you can play.  And so you can run really fast.

Abbie: It keeps your inside warm.

Africa Grace: Skin is so you don’t have your skeleton out.

Jax: If you take your skin off, you’ll see your bones.

Theo: It helps keep the bones inside the body.

Kaylee: And the blood inside.

Sallie Chappell: When we grow into a baby, we grow skin.

Jair: Skin helps you grow bigger and bigger when you eat your vegetables.

Amie: If you don’t have skin, you’ll die.

Betsegaw: Self portraits are you draw if you’re a boy or a girl.

Abbie: You make your eye color.

Theo: I need to make my Nationals jersey.  And my missing teeth.  And little boogers in my nose.

Aria: Don’t forget to make your eyelids.

Jacob: My legs are lines.  And my feet look like little ovals.  My fingers look like five lines.

Frances: How come I’m always in my skin?

Kaitlyn: I put my unicorn horn.

Nora: I need to add my birth mark.

Adele: It means… um… self means us, so, a picture of us!

Ellie: How do I make Ellie?

Eva:  I added a freckle to my foot.  And a bandaid.

Jayden: That’s me.  That’s myself!

Hope: I have skin on my face.  And my cheeks.

Below are self portraits in process!  Next week, friends will mix colors with liquid watercolors as they start adding additional details to their portraits.