Create a Cubist Self-Portrait

Is your child a young Picasso? Support his creative nature by helping him to learn about art styles, and work on art process explorations. The cubist movement began in the twentieth century with the creation of abstract, broken up works of art. Translate this into a fun activity for young students by encouraging cubist inspired art made at home.

The cubist collage self portrait activity will help your child to better observe, analyze, and reconstruct his own imaginative thoughts. Additionally, it reinforces basic math skills such as geometry, promotes self-awareness, and can help build aesthetic awareness. Moreover, he'll learn some art history while he's at it!

What You Need:

• Construction paper (at least two pieces)
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Crayons, oil pastels, or markers
• Mirror

What to Do:

1. Ask your child to take a look in the mirror. What does he see? How does the face change with each expression of emotion he makes?
2. Now it's time for your child to create a pencil drawn self-portrait. This can be a close up of just the face, neck, and shoulders or a full length portrait.
3. Have your child color in the pencil self-portrait. Crayons or makers may be used. For added fun, try oil pastels. These soft crayons can help your child to further explore color and art.
4. After the self-portrait is finished, have your child cut the drawing into pieces that form geometric shapes. Make sure that the pieces are not too small.
5. Have your child rearrange and reassemble the cut-out shapes of his portrait using glue on a blank sheet of construction paper. He should rearrange them in a way that makes a completely new abstract portrait. Let his imagination run wild! There are no limits to the ways in which he can make his composition.
6. Enjoy your child’s abstract cubist collage!

Try extending this project by asking your child to create several self-portrait collages. Each artwork can be varied by altering the facial gestures and emotion, and even colors. Ask your child to choose colors that connect with the emotion in the drawing. For example, a sad picture may be blue while a happy portrait could be bright yellow.