Self Portrait Prints with New Entrants

Wow, what a special day it was in the art room today. I had the newest of the Island Bay whanau join me - Emma’s New Entrant class. Last time they visited there were only five students in the class, now there are 18 eager little learners. It was a big day for everybody, some of the students have only been at school for a week with one student only starting two days ago.

We had a busy day creating art works for one of our school fundraisers, Calendar Art. The students create a piece of art that is then sent away to be printed onto a calendar, diary, notebook or a set of cards. The students made self portraits which should look very cute as a calendar or card!

To start the process today the students looked in the mirror, studied their facial features and drew sketches of themselves. We paid particular attention to how to draw eyes with irises and pupils, aswell as a mouth with lips, teeth and tongue. The sketches were darling, it is a shame I was so busy and forgot to take photos of them.

After finishing their sketches the students drew their self portraits onto a polystyrene printing block. Some students added patterns in the background of their drawings and others added patterns to their hair.

The students made prints by rolling their brayers in the black inking well and loading up their printing blocks with an even amount of ink. They placed a blank piece of neon paper on top and rolled a clean brayer over the paper to transfer their image from the printing plate. They made at least two prints each, one or two to take home today and one to put on the calendar art.

While the prints were drying the students made a collaged background with pieces of neon and black paper. The students were asked to overlap the paper and try to eliminate the white background. We glued the self portrait print over the top to create the final product. I think the self-portraits are adorable, I hope you like them too.