Drawing Those You Family Portrait Love Art Lesson Plan

For the past couple years I've been doing a family portrait drawing project with my 3rd graders for their Square ane Art fundraiser project. I hateful.. who could resist a child-drawn picture of their family? If my son brought that home I'd purchase 2 of everything! #adorable

Drawing with 3rd graders can exist tough. Some of them are nevertheless at the point where they are willing to try drawing whatever.. but unfortunately some of them reach that tipping point where all of a sudden if they aren't immediately successful, they think they tin't practice information technology.

That's why for this lesson I took a more step-by-footstep arroyo with them. Nosotros all began on the rug in my classroom. I showed my students a brief PowerPoint explaining what a family portrait is, then we compared and contrasted two very different family unit portraits drawn by children (i was an prototype I found online and the other was an example past one of my 3rd graders).

We talked nearly how the portrait fatigued by the 3rd grader had a background, was fully colored, had the family members overlapping to create space, had thought about body proportions, etc., while the portrait found on the internet did non. My students all agreed that the portrait with all the extra details was definitely a more than successful drawing.

Before beginning my demo, I told my students that if they already knew how to depict people and wanted to do it their way, then AWESOME - they could go back to their tabular array and get drawing! Simply if they thought that they might exist able to learn some new cartoon strategies by watching me, they should stay on the carpet. Out of all my classes so far this year, I've had 3 students decide to go get started on their own (and honestly their drawings were fantastic).

I broke up this project into a bunch of steps. My students would watch me draw something and explicate to them why I did what I did, then they went back to their seats and did it themselves. Then once they were finished with the step, they came back to the rug so I would know that they were ready to move on. All in all, this project took well-nigh of my students 4-5 45-minute class periods to complete.

Before my students drew anything, I had them repeat the saying "Describe light until you lot know it'southward right!" similar v times. This was particularly of import for them to remember because we would be erasing a bunch of what we drew.

Step 1 - Describe a horizon line and trace your family member's heads.

I explained to students that a horizon line is where the land meets the sky in a moving picture. So they used a ruler and drew a horizontal line somewhere nearly the centre of their page. Then I gave them two differently sized head tracers (ovals I cut out of posterboard) then they could add their family member'due south heads to the folio. Adults were drawn with the large sized tracer, while the kids were fatigued with the smaller tracer. I'm non normally a fan of using stencils/tracers.. merely if they drew their heads too small, they would've kinda been doomed from the starting time. At that place are bigger battles people - use the tracers.

Nosotros also talked about the placement of the heads on the page. Adult heads should be placed college on the page (above the horizon line), while children's heads should be lower down (merely not also low though because they withal need space to draw the body)! We too talked about how the heads should exist staggered on the page (you don't want a kid's head immediately under an adult's head). If the heads aren't staggered, students terminate upward losing a lot of detail on the person in the back. To help illustrate this point, I arranged a group of students in forepart of the form then they could see why sure arrangements would be a trouble.

Step 2 - Draw the necks, necklines, and shoulders.

I had students draw 2 lines downwards for the neck and then connect those two lines with a '5' or a curved line for the neckline (where the shirt meets the neck). Then they drew curved lines that were at least as wide every bit the caput extending from the bottom of those lines. Students who had trouble cartoon these lines with a curve were told just to exercise straight lines out (which would after be adapted).

Pace 3 - Draw waistlines.

Students found the halfway bespeak between the shoulders of a person and the bottom of the folio, then they drew a horizontal line about every bit wide equally the caput.

Step 4 - Describe t-shirts on everyone.

Before beginning this step, I emphasized how of import information technology was to draw the shirts of kids in the front of the picture before the parents in the back. If students started with the people in the back, they would have to end up erasing a lot more than because the people in front would cover part of their item upward (overlapping).

Students drew two lines upward from the waistline, then curved the shoulder line down to create the sleeve.

They too went ahead and drew their people's arms and hands in. We talked virtually how people's arms typically go past their waistline. I told them not to stress most drawing fingers. If they could practice it - Crawly! Simply if non it was perfectly okay to depict them balled up. Over again - there are bigger battles. I swear some of my kids would've spent the entire class period just trying to describe hands if I had permit them!

It was likewise important to let them know what some of the detail on the people in the back would exist hidden.. but that they should keep drawing everything that they would be able to encounter.

Step v - Add together bottoms (pants, shorts, dresses, shoes).

Students just extended the line down from the side of shirt to create the sides of the pants. If they wanted to create a dress, they but had to erase the waistline and then extend the line down and draw the bottom of the dress. If they were cartoon shorts, we talked virtually how legs are oftentimes smaller than the width of shorts.

We also talked about how people don't ordinarily accept their anxiety sticking out to the sides. Students were encouraged to draw the shoes as if they were projecting out forwards (towards the viewer). Cartoon the shoes this way was a big "WOW" moment for a lot of my students! 😊

Stride 6 - Add the face and hair.

I demonstrated how I would draw my own pilus and face on my cartoon, then sent the kids to complete their drawings.

A couple things we talked about were:

-remembering to add together details similar eyebrows and ears

-drawing more realistic eyes that appeared about halfway up the person'southward head

-how the tops of ears usually line up with a person'southward optics

-how hair tin can change the contour of the top of the head

Students had a lot of wiggle room hither. Ultimately they were told to draw the facial features how they wanted to.

Step 7 - Outline everything with a sharpie pen.

Students were to trace over EVERYTHING with a sharpie pen. "Mrs. Nguyen.. even the eyes?" "Yes." "What about the hair?" "Yes." "What virtually the horizon line?" "Yes." 😒

Once they were done tracing, they went over everything with an eraser to make clean upwards their cartoon.

This is when a bunch of them realized that they had missed an middle or manus with the sharpie.

Step 8 - Colour in the people with crayon.

This is where I actually inverse upward my project from previous years. In the past I had my kids pigment their pictures or employ marker.. only this year I went with crayon and watercolor paint in the background. Why? Because the crayon and watercolor pigment resist each other, so if the crayon is pressed down hard enough.. information technology makes it really difficult to accidentally paint over a person's face up/body.

All of my tables were given tester papers then that kids could try out a colour before they chose to utilise it.

I too encouraged my students to color all the skin areas first - that way they wouldn't accidentally mix upwards colors and end up with different colored patches of skin on the same person.

Step 9 - Paint the background with watercolor paints.

Students were costless to paint their backgrounds withal they wanted, but most opted for using green and blue.

Were there some problems with proportion? Of form! But this is 3rd form people! I think they turned out beautifully! **My students were all amazed how well they were able to draw their family portraits. 😁