Crafty Friday: Picasso Portraits

This Crafty Friday project was a lot of fun, so much so that I even got in on the action. We started off learning a bit about Picasso and his influence as one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century. We looked at a variety of his paintings and discussed how his style evolved over time. Then, we got to work on our own portraits.

Here’s what you need:

-paper

-scissors

-glue

-found objects [clothespins, newsprint, beans, buttons, yarn, etc.]

-markers

My kids really liked Picasso’s Three Musicians, so we used the painting as inspiration for our own portraits.

Finn was a bit intimidated to tackle a self portrait at first.  He thought he was going to have to paint a portrait like the masters, but once he saw this painting, he regained hope.

The first thing I encouraged my kids to do was to think outside the box. They typically try to follow a conventional way of making a portrait, making every feature proportional and symmetrical. I ended up making my own portrait to show them that their portraits could be as strange as they wanted them to be. See exhibit A:

Looks just like me, don’t you think?

This was the nudge they needed to get creative with their own faces. 

We resulted in some pretty imaginative portraits…

with quite a likeness to their creators…

Happy Crafting!

nessa dee