Symbolic Self-Portrait Activity & Colour Walk/ Scavenger Hunt

Here are a few studio activity ideas that I've heard of recently that I think are good enough to write down:

    Symbolic Self-Portrait:
Step 1: on a large paper (16 X 20 or more) trace the outline of your profile using a projector.

Step 2: write a list of personal interests and experiences (optional: consider the questions:
What is one of your favourite quotes? philosophy? prayer? Who are the most important people in your life? What represents home for you? Where do you want to go? What represents the future for you?)

Step 3: Draw/ write/ paint/ and collage items and scenes from your list inside the outline of your profile.


    Colour Walk/ Scavenger Hunt:
Simple but potentially beautiful and a good way to work on the element of design: colour.

Step 1: Walk from the class to the park and back in 30 minutes and collect a different item for each colour.

Step 2: All students glue their items on the same neutral toned bristol board in the same order. Hang the final piece in the studio for future reference.

A.G.O. visit follow-up lesson and CPT studio project

Anticipatory Set: have students write a list of words, ideas, phrases that represent Canadian culture/identity to them personally, based on their experiences. 

Follow this with a powerpoint and class discussion, reviewing some of the Group of 7 work that was explored at the A.G.O. What would their list include? Review the creative process used by the Group of 7. Then introduce the studio project, which has three stages.

Stage one: for the rest of class today, students will look through magazines to find images of the items on their list (that represent Canadian identity). Students are encouraged to use the internet and print out search results. (15 Minutes) If they have time they will begin to create a collage that covers one piece of illustration board (16X20) using these collected images. To be completed during the following class.

Stage two: students will engage in the creative process used by the Group of 7, by outdoor sketching on a class trip to a nearby park. Sketches will be done in their sketchbooks and will focus on a landscape that must incorporate some wilderness. Students will take 3-5 digital photographs of what they sketched for reference, upload them to the class folder, and print them during the next class.

Stage three: students will explore composition in their sketchbooks based on their outdoor sketch and their digital photographs. After I approve their sketches and composition, students will begin an acrylic painting on top of their collage, based on their sketch, their digital photographs and their explorations. Students will paint over their collage but must leave some showing through. (For example, students may keep the collage as the sky, or as the background, or a texture). I will model each stage as we go.