Picasso Silly Faces!

In this project the students learned about Pablo Picasso and created a silly face using lots of shapes and colors.

Pablo Picasso is one of the most innovative and recognized artist of the 20th century.  He is best known for co-founding the CUBIST MOVEMENT and for the variety of styles embodied in work.

Cubism is basically the idea of breaking an image into abstract shapes.  I always tell students it's like looking at something in a broken mirror. 

Materials:

• Large white drawing paper
• Construction Paper cut into a variety of shapes
• tempera paint
• Paper Plates
• glue
• oil pastels/crayons

Intro: Introduce the artist by showing the students sample artwork- Above are two I displayed in my class- Bust de femme au chapeau: Portrait de femme chapeau et au corsage imprime 1962, and Weeping Woman 1937

Then explain the project.

 1.) To begin give each student a pile of shapes, glue and a large white paper.  They will cover the white paper by gluing on the shapes to create a background.

 2.)Next have students draw a face on the paper plate with crayons or oil pastels. I had the kids draw a wavy line down the middle and then encouraged them to mix up the facial features and draw them with simple shapes. (a circle nose, square eye, rectangle mouth).  

 3.) Then paint the face with tempera paints- Some got so into the painting that they lost their drawings underneath so they added new faces and some glued on some small paper shapes.

*  I like giving the kids choices and the chance to explore because so much of it at this age is about discovery and process!

 I love seeing what the kids come up with! They are so creative.

 4.) The last thing to do is to glue the paper plate face to the background and add some paint to the background too if desired.

Some of these turned out quite abstract.  But the kids loved the process of gluing on the shapes to create the background and making their faces-and  just exploring all the different kinds of shapes-
especially for the younger ones!




* Just a side note, I had enough shapes pre-cut for the students to use, but many of them we interested in customizing their shapes- I only let students cut if they had a parent helping or demonstrated proficiency - and while this will help develop cutting skills it was not intended to be a cutting lesson.  Many of my students were already very good with scissors so I/parents allowed them to cut.