FIRST GRADE . . . What is the subject? What is the background?

Portraits by Ella, Desmond and Rianna

First graders continued to work on their portraits based on the pose of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." We drew our faces, shoulders and folded hands just like in the famous portrait by da Vinci, and today we colored them in with a color palette that best represents each of us.

In the "Mona Lisa," the subject of the painting is the portrait. The background is the area behind the subject, represented as a soft landscape that seems to be very far away.

To make the distinction between the subject and the background in our pictures, our completed portraits were cut out of the paper we created them on. Next week we will begin a watercolor landscape for our backgrounds. These portraits will then be mounted over the front of the landscapes.



Created in two very different ways, the subject of our pictures is the portrait drawn with bright colors and fine detail, and the background will be the landscape painted with watercolors in softer, more muted tones. We can't wait to put it all together!