End of the year portraits

Today we spent a big portion of the day working on one last project, a self portrait.  Recently we had holder skills and working with acrylic Paint, and the idea of value as an element of design. The artwork we created with these skills was auctioned off to raise money for the playground two weeks ago. Using a team approach today the students created self portraits.

 I used projection image of each of them to create the contour outlines for them to follow, focussing on areas of light and darkness. Today they had a great time exploring and learning techniques to apply the acrylic paints to their canvases. The final product for each student will be something very special.

This is my personal way of trying to leave them with a little special Momento of our time together. Each one of the students is unique, and their perspectives are all unique as well, just like these portraits.  I like that I gave them a general outline of what to do, but it was them that really filled it with the colour that allowed the portrait to take shape. It’s their choice of colors, within the guidelines I set out, that makes these so enjoyable to look at. I think this is a metaphor for the year that we’ve had together. I did my best to outline the expectations for students in every area that we explored, but it was them who individually chose the colours they were going to use to fill in the space I gave them to explore. Each one of them painted their own picture of learning as we went through this adventure over the past 10 months.   

Thank you to everyone who came out this evening to our picnic in the park. I believe we had 17 of the families show up, which is an incredible turnout. Everyone left with their portfolios, and their own personal copy of the “mystery island Chronicles”.  Please take the time with your child to give a good luck to each of these when you are at home over the next days and weeks.

We have one more adventure tomorrow at Gatineau park, and then some time together on Thursday to close out the year.  Any portraits that are unfinished will be completed on Thursday with a little bit of help. 

Only two more sleeps to summer!