Lesson Two: Square 1- Drawing a Self-Portrait

Square 1: Drawing a Self-Portrait

Out of the 143 paintings Frida Kahlo completed in her lifetime,

55 are self-portraits. 

Kahlo said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." 

What is the Square 1 Art project? Why is it so important?

Square 1 Art is a program that replicates student art on a variety of keepsakes to raise funds for art program in the school. Last year, Verdugo Woodlands raised enough money to fund this year's Art Rep program! It engages students in creating art that they can share with others. It nurtures each student's creativity, provides them with a sense of pride, engages parents and children, creates long-lasting memories, and helps sustain visual arts in the school.

 

Every year, an art project is selected to help guide our students’ artmaking. This year, we have chosen to do a lesson on traditional self-portraits inspired by Frida Kahlo. 

 

You, the Art Reps, play a very important role in facilitating this program. You will provide help to students and your classroom teacher throughout this process. You will be the cheerleader, organizer, and administrator of the program in the class. In short, the success of the program in each class depends on your effort and dedication. So, in advance, we say thank you!

 

Not only is it a favorite project of our kids every year, it raises funds in the process. This is our single and most important fundraiser for the Arts at VW program and the money raised is earmarked specifically to go directly back to the arts curriculum. Our goal is 100% participation.

 

Every child gets a page of free stickers of his/her artwork, whether or not a purchase is made. 

 

8 - 2 Inch square stickers & 1 2.5 Inch square sticker

There are multiple products to choose from and order. Parents can ORDER great gifts of their child’s work to gift to their grandparents, family members and friends, delivered right in time for Christmas. 

 

*See more products at  https://shop.square1art.com

 

Our goal is to ensure 100% participation in every class. We also need to complete all the work by March 15th so that parents can place and receive their orders by Mother’s Day. We will go over the details of the programs and schedules during orientation.

We sincerely thank you for your help and dedication!

 

 

The Lesson

Today you will be drawing a self-portrait. The lesson will focus on learning techniques for correct facial proportions and adding your own unique details. 

*See the end of lesson for suggested modifications for younger grades.

Supplies:

• Skin tone crayons*

• Mirror*

• A Pencil

• Regular crayons

• Black Sharpie

• Markers

• Square 1 paper*

*each student will be given a pack of skin tone crayons and a mirror.  The teachers will be given these supplies prior to the lesson. The drawing will be done on paper supplied by Square 1. Teachers will be given these forms in advance.

Part 1: Sketching Our Face

1. Get your pencil.   Look at the shape of your face in your mirror.  Faces have many different shapes they can be round, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, heart, or even diamond shaped.  Now think about the shape of your face and draw the outline on your paper.  Make sure to draw it pretty big. 

   
   
   
   
   

2. Now that we have the outline of our face let's add some details.  We are going to start by drawing some guidelines.  Now you might not know this, but our eyes are actually in the middle of our face. So, I would like everyone to draw a very light horizontal/hot dog line in the middle of your face with your pencil.  This is the eye line.  

   
   
   
   
   

3. The next thing I would like everyone to do is draw a very light vertical/tall building line from the top of head all the way down to the chin.  This line helps with the positioning of the eyes, nose, mouth, etc.  

   
   
   

4. Now, we are going to draw another light horizontal/hotdog line about half way between the eye line and your chin.  This line marks the placement of the bottom of the nose.  So, we will call it the nose line.  

   
   
   

5. We are going to draw one more horizontal/hot dog line.  This line goes a about a third of the way between the nose line and your chin.  This is the mouth line.  

   
   
   

6. Now that we have our guidelines we can start to draw our face.  Let’s begin with the eyes.  Fact: Your face is about five eyes wide.  I want everyone to look at your eyes in your mirror.  What shape are they? Are they rounder? more oval? Wide? Skinny?  Use the eye line and the center line to guide the placement of your eyes. The eye line should bisect the eye.  In other word, half of your eye should be on top of the line and half should be underneath the line.  Your eyes should be about one eye width apart.  One good way to start drawing your eyes is to start with a circle then add the curved lines.

   
   
   

7. Once you have drawn your basic eye shape then you can add the pupil and eyelid.  You want your eyelid to cover the top of the iris.  This is a good time to remind everyone that nothing needs to be exact and that these are all just guidelines because everyone is unique.  

   
   
   

8. Next let’s draw our nose. The first thing we are going to do is draw two vertical/tall building light lines from the inside of each eye down to the nose line.  This is how wide your nose should be.  Think about the shape of your nose.  It is easiest to start by drawing the bottom of your nose at the nose line.  *Since we all need to keep our masks on you will need to do your best to remember what your nose and mouth look like.
   

   
   
   
   
   
   

9. Now we are going to add our mouth. To find the width of our mouth we are going to draw two more vertical/tall building lines.  This time we are going to draw the lines from the inside of the pupil down to the mouth line.  the upper lip goes on top of the mouth line and the lower lip goes underneath. When you draw your mouth think about the size and shape of your top and bottom lip.  Is your upper lip smaller than your bottom lip? 

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

10. It’s now time to draw your ears.  Your ears should go from about the eye line to the nose line.  Again, everyone’s ears are little bit different so remember to look in your mirror.  

    
    
    

11. Ok let’s go back to our eyes now and add our eyebrows and eyelashes.  Look in your mirror to find their shape and size.  Draw your eyelashes very lightly.  

    
    
    

12. Next, we are going to draw our neck and shirt/shoulders.  You want to start your neck at the mouth line and draw a concave line down.  Look at your neck, do you have a wide neck? A skinny neck? A long neck? A short neck.  Then you want to start your shirt/shoulder line about 1 in from the bottom of the neck and draw outwards to the edge of the page. To get the collar line of the shirt draw a curved line from one side of the shoulder line to the other.

    
    
    
    
    
    

13. Let’s add our hair.  Your hair line starts about half way between the top of your head and your eyebrows.  Take some time to look in your mirror at the shape of your hair.  Do you have bangs? Long hair? short hair? Curly? Straight? Remember that some of your hair might go in front of your ears.  Begin to lightly sketch in your hair.   We will be adding color to our portrait in the next steps. 

    
    
    
    
    
    

14.  Now that the sketch of our self-portrait is finished it is okay to gently erase the guidelines that are still showing. 

15. Next we are going to outline our self-portrait in black sharpie or marker. We are going to start by outlining our eyes, nose, and mouth.

    
    
    

16. After you have completed that, we are going to outline our ears and part of our face. For the face we are going to start our outline at the eye line and continue down to the chin and then back up stopping at the eye line on the other side of the face.

    
    
    
    
    
    

17. Finally we are going to outline our neck, hair, and shirt/shoulders. Once you have completed your outline it will be time to start adding color.

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

Part 2: Adding Color

1. It is time to start coloring our self-portrait.  Take out your drawing supplies. Let’s begin by coloring all the skin tone areas, face, neck, ears, nose.  If you need to test out colors on a scrap piece of paper to see if they are right please do so and don’t worry if while you are coloring some of the pencil begins to blend with the crayon.  

   
   
   

2. Next let’s color our eyes.  Are your eyes blue? Green? Brown? Hazel? A combination?

   
   
   

3. Now color your mouth.  Pay attention to the color of your lips.  Are they all one color? Are they different shades of color? 

   
   
   

4. Next let’s color our hair and eyebrows.  Look in your mirror.  Is your hair one shade or many? 

   
   
   

5. Now you may want to go back and add some shading to your face.  Look in your mirror are there areas of your face that have shadows? Maybe the side of your nose? around/under your eyes? Under your bottom lip? Under your chin? 

   
   
   

6. For our final step, we are going to color our shirt and back ground. It is best to use markers for this step to really make your self-portrait pop.  For the background think of a pattern or simple scene that represents you; for example, you may want to draw stripes in your favorite colors, the ocean and sky, or create a design using the colors of your favorite foods. try to use between 2 and 4 colors for your background.

   
   
   

7. Congratulations you are finished!!!

*when the students are finished with their self-portraits make sure that they write their name and the year in sharpie on their portrait.  I suggest having them do this near the top side of the head.  You just want to make sure they do not write it to close to the edge because it could get cut off in printing.  

Modifications: For Tk, K, skip the proportions and guidelines portion of the lesson and teach the lesson as a directed draw (kindergarten students should be familiar with directed draws).  It may be easier for the younger grades to draw their picture in sharpie or black marker instead of having to outline the picture afterwards.  Have the students focus on drawing their faces with as much detail as possible.  You can start the lesson by talking about face shape and having the students look at themselves in the mirror. Then you can instruct them to draw their head shape on their paper.  After that you can lead them in drawing the rest of the parts of the face.  Tell them to draw their eyes, then their nose, mouth, ears, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc.  Then you can finish up the lesson with directing the students in coloring in their self-portraits.  Tell them now we are going to color our face.  Next we are going to color our eyes.  Do this until the entire portrait is colored in.  For the background you may just want to have the students pick one or two colors to color.