Self-Portrait with Symbolism Inspired by Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo used symbolism in her self-portraits to represent stories about her life.  Students first learned about Frida Kahlo's life before looking at her self-portrait paintings so they could then search for and recognize the symbols Kahlo used.  Students then designed symbols to use that represents them.  We then learned how to draw self-portraits, breaking down how to draw each facial feature and using mirrors. Student's incorporated their symbols before coloring in their self-portraits.

Scratch Art

For this lesson, 4th graders learned about scratch art and we worked on drawing animals.  First we learned about what scratch art is and about the paper used for the medium.  We then made our own scratch art paper by coloring a thick layer of crayon or oil pastel followed by painting a layer of black tempera paint mixed with dish soap.  Students then practiced drawing animals on white paper before transferring the drawing onto their scratch paper using the graphite transfer method.