Paper Cut Portraits and More

This activity was such a neat process!  It took us multiple group lesson sessions with only 1 adult helping.  This was a K12's 2nd grade art lesson (we changed it a bit due to amount of paper I had available, instead of a self-portrait we just did a portraits.  Two did their own likeness.). I would agree that it's best for 2nd grade up but I had a preschooler (pretty much hand over hand) and a 1st grader that had success with it.  The kids loved the end product!  I loved having them on my walls. :-)

4th grader                  1st grader

 Notice the cowlick on the fourth graders.  :-D

 

 3rd grader

 

     2nd graders

 Loved the glasses!
 

preschooler (with lots of help)

 

This was the third or fourth project we did with faces.  They have come a LONG way.  Shape of face, filling up most of the paper.  Facial feature proportion and location, etc.  A tip for you, if you do this type of collage, have them look in a mirror and compare their pointer finger with the sizes and location of the facial features.  It helps when sketching their paper cut features.  If they fill a 9x12 piece of paper, the size of their head is pretty close to the size of their actual head.  We got a multicultural color pack of construction paper from Discount School Supply.

 

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A previous self-portrait lesson.
It happened that 3 of the 5 elementary-aged students had self-portrait projects around the same time.  So we turned it into a whole group morning lesson.  4th grader did 3rd grader's lesson because he didn't have a self-portrait project in the near future.  He loves to be able to do other's projects.
 

1st grader

painted, "shoulders up/bust" self-portrait

              

2nd graders

Full body self-portrait with drawings that interested them in the background.

 

3rd and 4th grader

Self-portrait-royalty.  They really had fun with this one!

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This was a fourth grade art lesson that went along with African Masks. I've done this project with older school-agers in the past. It's always a favorite.

Simply choose two colors of paper. Fold one in have like a hot dog. Trace a simple half of face starting at the fold. Cut out. (A. used an Exacto knife to cut out facial features). Glue the cut out page on the left side of the 2nd contrasting color of paper, and the cut out facial features to the right side. Fun stuff! I really wouldn't suggest this for anyone younger than 3rd grade.