Art School | Life Size Self Portraits

by Deborah Harju, posted on June 25th, 2013 in Art School

Today’s lesson is a great self-esteem building project. With the school year just ending, I really can’t get over how quickly our kids grow in one year. This is a great keepsake, especially if you make this a yearly lesson, to see how your child not only grows from year to year, but how their perception of themselves changes.

To start you’ll need a long piece of butcher paper, long enough so when your child lays down, there is enough space all around. A willing parent will need to trace their body, hair included, with a pencil.

When traced, ask your child to take a look at themselves in the mirror, look at the clothes they are wearing, the color of their hair, eyes, etc. And hand over the pencil to them. Let them get drawing. You may be surprised how careful they pay attention to detail.

Ask them to outline their body and details with a Sharpie.

And then they can use crayons to fill in color.

It’s probably starting to look a lot like someone you know by now.

The last part of this project will be the adjectives. Ask your child to describe themselves, what qualities come to their mind when they think of themselves? If your child is old enough to write them down on their own, they can use the space all around to fill in with descriptive words. If they are too young, just write down the adjectives they say.