Grade 3 discovers Picasso!

I adapted this lesson from one I found I think in a School Arts magazine several years ago. It was a Picasso Halloween lesson, with two-face witches. It was a perfect way to deal with this:
The scrap box!!!

(Though since we did the lesson, it seems to be even more full...)

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And it was also a great lesson to follow up their hard work on their mirror self-portraits. This time, I said it was OK to have big black nostrils, giant teeth, purple eyeballs, and hair growing out of their ears. We had looked at the work of Picasso and decided to focus on the artwork that showed a sense of humor, heck, downright silliness, and spontaneity. Plus we didn't have a lot of time, and this project is easy.

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We used one art class to first learn about Picasso, and get started on the project. Each child took two sheets of construction paper, cut to 8"x 11" (I think). They drew an oval that touched all 4 sides of the rectangular paper. Those of you who've been reading my blog a while would know I didn't use an oval template. I do NOT want them all the same, and I want them to discover they CAN draw an oval themself. (When we did our self-portraits, we practiced drawing ovals on the table with our finger, using our whole arm.) If a child had trouble, they put a dot on each side of the paper and just made sure their oval touched each dot.

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The two papers were put together and the ovals were cut. One oval was glued on a sheet of white paper, which was maybe 12"x 15". On the other oval, the students drew an exaggerated profile line from top to bottom (we had previously practiced drawing profiles). The profile was cut, one 1/2 went into the scrap box, and the other was glued to line up the edge with the first oval.

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In the next art class, students completed glueing the ovals and profiles, and then, with just brief direction/advice they dove in, knowing this was the only class time to work on this. I put on a lively Putumayo CD, and the atmosphere was cheerful and inventive. The kids did NOT pre-draw anything before cutting; rather the Sharpies were used for added detail. They worked merrily and we took just two minutes to close up glue sticks and pick up scraps. I love my 3rd graders!