I’m just so weary of the dull weather these days ! I just cant wait for longer brighter evenings and days where I don’t need a hat ! So 1st week back after a very quiet period ( while recuperating from the flu ! ) I decided to do soemthing bright and cheerful ( and not messy as I had just cleaned and cleared out the Art Room so last thing I wanted to do in the 1st week back was to destroy it again !)
So I was thinking self portraits and ‘abstract’ to get everyone back into the swing. Even though its easy to do abstract in practice I find with the kids, that its hard to their mindset going in that direction and takes them out of their comfort zone a little ( and some more than others ! ). A lot of the Art lessons at school seem to say ” make it like this , put this colour here , draw the eyes this way ” and I think it hinders their creativity a lot. I’m sad to say its been a long while since I’ve seen any interesting art make it home in either of my kids school bags year.
Anyway on my travels I remembered the bright and beautiful work of Sandra Silberzweig and how she was heavily influenced by Picasso. Her work is so full of life and colourful I knew the kids would love it !
We used oil pastel on Black card and tried to link the pictures to our own personality and focused on how to put in ideas about ourselves into our self portraits abstractively using different colours, textures and patterns. At the same time we tried to forget about getting a real likeness going !
Its definitely an easy project for any level and age so if you’re looking for a project on a dreary afternoon, give it a bash ! Enjoy and feel free to comment ! You can view more of Sandra Silberzweigs amazing art on Instragram @silbersweig.art – she liked all of our pictures so I’m excited to tell the kids ! Roll on spring ! Emma 🙂
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