"I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" Self-Portraits (2017)

These self-portraits are inspired by one of my favorite books "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!" written by Karen Beaumont, Illustrated by David Catrow, an Art Teacher book must have!

There are a lot of different versions of projects based on this book out there, I love doing it this way because they really get to play with the watercolors, and it is a great intake of drawing, painting, cutting, and writing skills.

I've done this project many times in the past and it's made transformations over the years. Here are older posts if you are looking to see what I've done in the past and the project broken down a little more. Here is November 2016, October 2015, June 2015, and my first attempt in June 2014.

The only change this year was a little cutting practice before we cut out the portraits, mostly formative assessment to see what I was working with and so I could make scissor-hold corrections right away. I drew up this sheet and we sat on the floor together and cut each part while I told a story about "my friend Joe who wanted to get to the kitchen to eat all the triangle foods he was thinking about" but first he had to "weave through the forest", "climb the very sharp hills", "climb across the thick wall", and "swim across the pond". We finished with a bubble cut around him and his thoughts so he "wouldn't forget what he wanted to eat when he got to the kitchen". It was so successful one of my Kindergarten teachers asked me to draw up some other cutting sheets for her kiddos. 

Right: "Can I draw what's on our insides?"

"Ain't Gonna Paint No More" Self-Portraits 2015

Kindergarten and first grade started the year with probably my favorite self-portrait project that I do with this age group.... 

The portraits are inspired by one of my favorite books "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!" written by Karen Beaumont, Illustrated by David Catrow, an Art Teacher book must have!

I've done this project a few times now so you can check out the original post with the day by day breakdown here and a modification I did here. This is the third time I have done this project and changed it again, this time to their names in the background.

This might be my favorite version with their name as the background although I did run into a few Kindergarteners who could not write their name yet because it was too early in the year.

Self Portraits with 1st Grade

Each year I do a self-portrait unit with each grade. For first grade this year we read the book A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon to inspire our portraits.

  Really an awesome book about individuality and being unique, slightly long but totally worth it.

 I found a great online version of the book via StoryLine Online. They have "celebrities" read different children's books and are usually very good quality. They also have a great version of "When Pigasso Met Mootisse". While the video was playing I was sitting up front holding my copy with the pictures showing the whole time.

After drawing their self portrait they had an option of painting and coloring themselves "normal" or with "a case of stripes". We used crayons for the skin sections and watercolors for the rest.

I am always amazed when some of the self-portraits look exactly like them. Future art talents budding through!

Kindergarten "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!" Self Portraits

I said it once, and I'll say it again...If you have not seen or read the children's book "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" by Karen Beaumont then you are seriously missing out.  This self-portrait project goes perfectly with the book! I did this project before and approached the portrait part the same, you can find a more detailed day by day breakdown HERE with my post from last school year.

The only change that was made to the project was creating the large border of their names. I gave them a large piece of poster paper that had a rectangle traced in the middle that was slightly smaller than 12X18 so they knew that was were their portrait was going. Then I did a demo of all the different silly ways they could write their names. I put a big emphasis that it was only okay to do this in art class and not in the classroom because when I taught last years kiddos how to write their names backwards the Kindergarten teachers said they started doing it in the classroom on worksheets :)

I was really happy with the choice to add their names, I think it really added to the "self" in the portraits!

"Ish" Drawings with 2nd & 3rd

I attempted to do a collaborative project with another art teacher in the district so I needed an in between project to take up a day before they got their projects back to finish. I wanted this inbetweener to be connected so I went back to a favorite I did while I was doing my long term art job....

The collaborative project they were working on (more on that later) started with using a continuous line so I wanted a mini project that would continue that concept, that is where Ish came in! I'm sure most of you have read "Ish" by Peter Reynolds. If you haven't you are seriously missing out!

I can statement: I can use continuous line to draw "ish-ly"

Day 1:  We started the class learning about continuous line and doing the first part of the collaborative project which takes very little time. Then, I played them the TumbleBook version of the book and then I did a few practice drawings of how to draw things "Ish-ly". This is accomplished by not picking up the pencil no matter where you need to get on the paper to draw. Once they had the idea down I gave them this worksheet to try 6 different nouns.

After they finished the sheet they mini-conferenced with me on which one to do for their project.

Day 2: We watched the TumbleBook Ish again as a refresher then they got their sheets back with their chosen noun starred. A quick demo of me using my whole paper and writing the title of my "Ish" drawing and they were off to work. Almost all finished :)

Jefferson Elementary...

McDill Elementary...

These just turned out great and put such a smile on my face!

"I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" Portraits with K & 1

I absolutely LOVE a good children's book about "art" and when I find one that I can do a lesson with I LOVE it even more. If you have not seen or read the the "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" by Karen Beaumont then you are seriously missing out. You can find it on amazon :)

I already had the book when I stumbled upon a post on pinterest but of course I cannot find it**, even with my EPICALLY organized pinterest boards.

**FOUND IT!

This project kicked off my portrait unit with K-6. I knew it was going to be my last display so I wanted things to be very colorful! There is a slight variation between Kinders and 1st..... Kindergarten was basically a 1 day because it was just their heads. 1st grade took two classes because we did whole body.

These two made it into the spring art show!

Kindergarten!
Day 1: Started off the day with reading the book and a little drawing demo of how to draw yourself. My favorite part of the intro was making them put their hands on their heads and running their hands down their face and figuring out what shape our heads were. NOT CIRCLES--was the point of that. We talked about all the parts of our faces and I mentioned how people forget eyebrows and ears a lot when they draw, so our rule became if you have it draw it! That was it applied to glasses, hair length, etc. The silliest part was that I showed how to do a bunch of different hair on one head so my portrait had like five different hair styles in one. Perfect for when it was crazy hair day on the same day I did this with one of the kindergarten classes. After the discussion and demo I sent them off to work, first drawing in pencil, then tracing in sharpie. For painting with the watercolors the only rule was to paint in rainbow order so we did not have to change our water. We wanted our pictures to look like our character all messy with paint and no "real colors" just like our illustrator did. Some kiddos just couldn't handle the chaotic-ness of the paint anywhere any color, and had to paint things "correct". Type A and B personalities in the making :)

Day 2: At the start of class, before I introduced the next project, we cut out our portraits and glued them to black paper!

First Grade!
Day 1: I talked about the same things with the 1st graders as I did Kindergarten, but added drawing the body. We talked about how we are not stick figures and have different sides to all of our "parts" my favorite accidental word choice explanation that I needed up sticking with was that our "armpit shape" happens three times when we draw us. Better than saying CROTCH! Drawing and sharpie took the whole class for these guys.

Day 2: Painting! Same exact thing as Kindergarten.

Day 3: Cut and glued to black before the start of our next project!

100% I will be doing this project again!!

Any great children's books to recommend that make a great portrait project? I'd love to hear from you!