Me and My Shadow- 3rd Grade Action Selfies!

Dec 31, 2015

2 min read

3rd grade completed a really fun exploration of self portraits, the element of movement and gesture drawing with what I'm calling "Me and My Shadow." :)

Our learning goals were to understand the shapes that make up the human body when we are drawing, and how to turn those shapes into an action packed self portrait... with a twist. Students set out to also create the illusion of space by including a mirror image of themselves- their shadow.

We began by talking about the shapes we can use to draw a body... the goal was to move away from the "Potato People" or stick figures that we always use in a pinch (me included!). By looking at how the body moves and what shapes are present we were able to create more realistic looking action poses for our self portraits. (To see my introduction for this lesson, click on MEDIA and scroll down to 3rd Grade Gesture Drawings.)

We had a fun day both drawing wooden mannequins that we arranged in different poses and with using ourselves as models for gesture drawing (they LOVED this!). The goal of gesture drawing is to draw quickly and try to capture the essential movement of the model and pose without getting bogged down by all of the details. To do this, we did timed drawings (15 sec, 30 sec and 45 sec) of each pose. They had so much fun trying to draw what they were seeing and still beat the clock!

After our gesture drawings, we began to draw a self portrait that demonstrated some sort of movement or action. Because we were focusing on self portraits, the students drew themselves doing activities that they loved. They also created a mirror image shadow of their drawing and collaged it onto a background that they created. Some included "props" or other important items in their backgrounds, and some created more abstract designs that enhanced their self portrait.

All of them are amazing! I love how each of the personalities of the students shines through these action-packed self portraits! Click through the gallery to see their full images! Enjoy!