Sixth Grade Self-Portraits

Sixth graders are finishing up their self-portraits this week and I'm really proud of their progress.  Our focus has been on proportion, placement, and value in drawing realistic portraits.  We did a lot of work in our sketchbooks where we created a value scale, and practiced drawing individual facial features.  The final project was to create a realistic self-portrait using what we had learned.  To create these, students began by toning the paper lightly with their pencil.  They worked from a similar size black and white photo.  To help with placement students folded their photo two ways and drew corresponding lines on their paper dividing it into four blocks.  Working with one feature at a time students found they could use the center point as a handy reference for placing things correctly on the page.  The lines were erased out as the went along.
Nice job sixth grade.