Fun with Foreshortening

 We continued on with a fun self portrait using the pencil crayons. There is a method to my madness here. If the children were going to learn to play an instrument, I wouldn't let them learn piano one day, violin the next day and the tuba after that. I like to treat each medium like I would a musical instrument. Give them many opportunities to really explore the medium and push it to it's limits.

We began with two large sheets of paper and taped them together.

Then, we traced our hands and feet. The kids were then to draw their faces and bodies as if they were free falling.

In the background we put all kinds of symbols, and things that are individual to each child. This is a self portrait and I wanted them to include things that were of interest to them. It was interesting to me to see what sorts of things they thought described themselves.

This first one is of my three year old. I did the drawing for her and she told me what she wanted in the background. She included Minnie Mouse, snowflakes (because she LOVES the movie 'Frozen'), ABC's and 123's because she loves to be like the big kids and claims she is in preschool. She also included three hearts because she loves her three siblings!

Next was my 7 year old. He was born with a very dark complexion and I had to laugh because of the color he chose for his skin. It looked a bit dark to me, but on further inspection the crayon matched his skin perfectly!  He drew himself as a very smile-y super hero complete with cape!



Like his big brother, the 5 year old also drew himself as a super hero. He looked a little angry in the drawing, and when I asked him about it, he said he wasn't angry, just flexing his muscles. It is his way of depicting how strong he is. One thing I have learned being the mom of boys is that being seen as strong is a very important thing to them.

My daughter drew herself in a tiger suit. Her favorite color is orange because tigers are her favorite animal and they are orange. And her favorite animal is a tiger because they are orange....just a tad of circular reasoning here, but this is all the reason she needs! I love how she incorporated her new glasses. They are very well drawn compared to how they look in real life. The perspective in the tail is also a very nice added touch!

One important lesson I have learned is to never ask 'what is that?' Children have feelings that can be easily hurt and they can be discouraged very easily as well. A better way to phrase the question if you don't understand their drawing is to ask them to tell you about their art. 'Tell me about why you chose blue here?' Or 'I sure love your drawing, could you tell me about it?' They usually tell you exactly what they have drawn and sometimes there is a story to go along.  Then it is important to commend them on all of the good parts of their piece.