Self Portraits

I did this project a few years ago with Grade 5 and I love it because it combines art and ICT together. However, there is a significant amount of prep work that goes into it so if you are dealing with a large number of students make sure that you are prepping for it way in advance. For me, I had only 18 students at the time.

Materials required:
- laptops for students
- photographs of students
- A3 paper
- oil pastels

Duration: 2 lessons of 60 minutes each

Prep work for first lesson: take photos of students with different facial expressions as this would add variety to the finished piece. Do this at least a week in advance so that you have time to take pictures of any students who are absent. Upload all student photos in a folder onto the laptops that they will be using and check the internet connection in the classroom.

1. The lesson objective was to learn how to manipulate photos online. As soon as my students received their laptops, I asked them to locate their own photo and rename it with their first and last name.
2. Students open up a browser, in my case it was Google Chrome and log onto www.fotoflexer.com 
3. Experiment with the different photo effects and apply a black and white effect to their picture.
4. Save picture to desktop and this is the end of the first lesson.

Prep work for second lesson: Print all student manipulated photos on A3 paper.

1. Students will use oil pastels to colour in their photos so demonstrate to students how they can use tones of colour and how they can create a patterned background.
What do you think of the results?

Food for thought - could this lesson tie in with colour theory? Perhaps we could have students relate their expressions to warm and cool colours? I'd be happy to hear your thoughts!