When I look for art projects for our homeschool group, I search for things I think will appeal to a wide range of skills and ages.  We’re currently doing self-portraits, a first for our group. And although I’m suggesting collage and providing specific instructions and resources at the bottom of this post, the students have the freedom to take this project in any direction they choose.

Of course, due to Covid-19, we’re not able to get together as a group. Instead, families are doing the projects at home using materials they have on hand.

Homeschool students working on art.
I’m missing our group’s Annual Summer Art Day this year.

Group Art Display

These self-portraits will be a part of our upcoming art display at the library.  The main focus of the exhibit is pollinators. Our group, Green Mountain Area Homeschoolers, started The Pretty Big Pollinator Project this year, a student-led service-learning project to increase pollinator awareness and conservation.  We’re making butterflies and encouraging the students to make other pollinator artwork as well.

Self-Portraits

The self-portraits will go up with the display to represent the relationship between people and pollinators.  Plus, it might be a nice change to see some full face exposure during this season of masks. 🙂

Student artist.
I especially miss seeing our students’ faces!

From what I’ve observed, self-portraits at a young age are generally pretty stress-free.  But as kids get older, many think their portraits (and other artwork) should be highly accurate visual renderings.  Hence, the suggested collage self-portrait.  Collage will also provide a visual contrast to our first project, the butterflies, which I’m assuming will be mostly painted.

Butterfly template artwork.
One of the first student butterflies submitted.

These guided projects of butterflies and self-portraits are designed to give our display some cohesiveness, while a third ‘student choice’ project will allow for more individual expression. The butterfly instructions are in this post. Below are the instructions and some inspiration for the self-portraits.

Project Two: Self-Portraits

Materials –

  • 8.5 x 11 piece of paper
  • Pencil
  • Glue
  • Collage materials – Anything that can be cut or torn and glued on the paper like magazines, newspapers, tissue paper, material, wrapping paper, old gift bags, etc…  even possibly toilet paper (if you find yourself with Covid-19 overstock issues)

Instructions –

Draw a face and neck that nearly fill the paper. If you want, you can use a bright light and have someone outline your silhouette on the paper.  However, the face does not have to look like yours.  If you choose to collage, the pieces you glue on can indicate things about yourself – your favorite colors, things you like to do, etc.  You can make this as realistic or abstract as you like. 

Note: It’s okay to do something other than collage – paint, crayons, marker, etc. – or to combine those elements with your collage.

Green Mountain Area Homeschoolers: Have your students put their names on the back of their butterflies and drop them off in the bin outside my house.

Self-Portrait Inspiration

Here are the four resources I’d suggest:

As always, I’m very excited to see what our students create and will share it with you in a future post!