The world's best grade 6 grad portraits!

These are my FAVORITE!! For grade 6 grad, our school always does some kind of self portrait project with the students. Last year, we did pop art style self portraits. This year, using an idea I adapted from The Lost Sock Blog, students made avatars on www.faceyourmanga.com, which they printed and used as references to draw their portraits onto cardboard.

Just to give some perspective on how big they are:

Here's a quick summary of the way we did it:

• design an avatar using faceyourmanga.com, and print it out
• draw the avatar onto cardboard, using pencil
• trace all pencil in Sharpie (this is a must - even though it will get covered in paint, you need to have dark lines to see them again after you've painted on them!)
• paint with tempera paint (use acrylic for whites and light colors so that they show up well!)
• wait until paint is dry, then retrace your Sharpie lines
• use chalk pastel to add detail (cheek color, highlights in hair, shading around nose and chin, etc.)
• cut out using Exacto knife

Voila!

I just love them. Cardboard was an amazing surface to work on - it soaks up the paint beautifully and gives rich, inspiring color. I love them!

Three more weeks left of school! Many changes ahead, I can't wait to share them all here!!