Picasso Faces

Ah, Picasso Face, ye olde elementary art staple.  I've been doing this project since my first year of teaching in 1999, and the kids are always so proud of the results.  I usually read Getting to Know Picasso at the start of this unit but my book seems to have disappeared, which was a huge bummer.  It had a pretty good run of 10+ years in the classroom, though. 

For the drawing, I had the kids draw a giant U on their paper and then add hair.  The next step was the line from the hairline all the way down to the chin with a wavy nose in the middle.  For the painting, I had one long table with warm colors and one with cool.  The kids painted one side of the face and then found a spot at the other table to do the other side.  The hair and background was up to them.

The eyes and mouth were drawn/colored separately and then glued on after the paint was dry.  We had a mini workshop on drawing facial features and they got a lot of practice.  They chose their two favorite eyes and one pair of lips to outline with a permanent marker and color with colored pencil.  After those bits were glued on, the whole thing was outined with black tempera.  This was a great lesson for paintbrush skills and the kids were very proud of themselves for being able to control a brush.