Room 3 - Self Portraits

Room 3 - Self Portraits

Room 3 have been busy learning about the proportions of the human face, by looking closely at their own faces instead of just drawing what they ‘think’ a face looks like.

Children typically draw the eyes too high up, on the forehead, and the nose in the centre of the face when, actually, the eyes are positioned approximately half-way down.

The classic way to teach self-portraiture is to have children study their own reflection but, without access to enough mirrors, a different approach was necessary. Instead, we took a photograph of each child and printed it out A4 size, before cutting it in half and glueing it onto drawing paper.

The children were challenged to complete the other half of their face by drawing the ‘mirror image’, taking care to observe their facial features carefully – from the position and shape of the eyes to the width of the mouth.