FIRST GRADE . . . Modern Mona Lisa!

Portrait by Amrita

Portrait by William

Portrait by Camila

Portrait by Paulie

As an introduction into the rich world of art history, first graders learned about the "Mona Lisa," painted by Leonardo da Vinci. To create our self-portraits, we drew our faces, shoulders and arms just like in the famous portrait by da Vinci, and 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, we created two separate works of art. The subject of our pictures is a portrait drawn with bright colors and fine details. The background was created as a landscape with watercolors in softer, more muted tones.

Here is how we did our project...
On one piece of drawing paper, we drew our portraits. To personalize them, we chose colors for our hair and eyes that best represent us. Then we added interesting details to the picture to tell a story about who we are in the portrait. As'ad is a construction worker and is wearing a hard hat on his head that says "Be careful!" Michaela loves animals and she added an adorable spotted puppy on her shirt. Once these were complete, the portraits were cut out of the white paper they were drawn on.

Portrait by As'ad

Portrait by Michaela

On a separate piece of paper, we painted our backgrounds. Using watercolors, we created a soft and colorful scene, letting the colors flow and blend together. Allie's paint flows across the page so beautifully creating movement in the water below and an impressive sunset sky. Scout painted ribbons of color forming a brilliant backdrop for any subject. Both of these watercolors could stand alone as beautiful works of art.

Background by Allie

Background by Scout

To see all of our Mona Lisa masterpieces, visit our home page on Artsonia.com and scroll through the list of exhibits to the first grade portraits.   http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839