1st Grade: Portraits/Lesson Organizer

The following lessons are taken from What Your First Grader Needs to Know and the Core Knowledge Teacher Handbook.
The Big Idea: Portraits and still lifes are two types of paintings.

KINDS OF PICTURES: PORTRAIT Vocabulary

Chiaroscuro: the use of light and shade in an artwork
Folk art: work made by artists who did not receive formal art training
Genre: category of art (landscape, portraiture, still life)
Genre painting: composition that describes everyday life
Miniature: small detail painting
Portrait: image in any medium of a specific person or animal
Self-portrait: an artist’s depiction of a specific person or animal
Sfumato: the blurring of the edges of objects to make them appear far away in a hazy twilight atmosphere

What Students Need to Learn:

1. Recognize as a portrait or self portrait: Mona Lisa, Don Manuel, and van Gogh’s Self Portrait.

At a Glance The most important ideas for students are:

1. Genres are categories of art
2. Portraits and self-portraits are important art genres
3. Portraits portray people or animals, and self-portraits depict the artists themselves.

Higher Order Thinking

# Method Objectives Materials
Framework
Questioning
Demonstration Students will be introduced to portraiture as an Q. Think about the Durer’s Hare. Knowledge,
Class important art genre. pictures hanging in Patterns
Discussion, your home. Are Modeling
Activity 1. Genres: mysteries, historical fiction, there any pictures of Creativity
biographies, are some literary genres. Some art you or your family?
genres are still lives, landscapes, and portraits. What are they
2. A photo of someone is a portrait. A picture of called?
an animal that shows the characteristics of that A. Portraits
person or animal is a portrait, like Durer’s
Hare.
Demonstration Students will be introduced to Leonardo’s Mona Q. What does the Reproduction of the Knowledge,
Class Lisa. painting show? Mona Lisa Patterns
Discussion, Q. When do you Modeling
Activity Lesson Ideas: think this woman Pencil and paper Creativity
1. Read picture book “Who Stole the Mona Lisa” lived?
2. Show Leonardo’s Mona Lisa reproduction Q. What do you Graphite or neutral
3. Ask Q’s think her expression chalk pastels
Describe chiaroscuro (picture isn’t made with strong means?
lines but shadows and highlights) and sfumato (with
the landscape’s hazy distant look).

Lesson Ideas:
1. Practice the concepts of chiaroscuro and
sfumato (Option: making a portrait copy of
Mona Lisa using neutral chalk pastel or
graphite covered paper and erase highlights and
darken in area and not use strong lines.)

Demonstration Students will have a “looking session” with famous Q. What does this Reproduction of a Knowledge,
Class portraits and what they say about a person. portrait reveal about portrait of a famous Patterns
Discussion, this person? person whom the Modeling
Activity Lesson Ideas: students won’t Creativity
1. Be shown a reproduction of a portrait of a recognize but is
famous person whom the students won’t related to their study
recognize but is related to their study in in history or science.
history or science.
2. Have a “looking session” to Pencil and paper
identify what the portrait might reveal about
the person. Reference pictures
3. Draw 6 or more heads and draw different with a variety of
facial expressions on each. Then they’ll facial expressions
write the expression or have a partner guess
the expressions; happy, sad, excited, angry,
tired, surprised, etc.
Demonstration Students will be introduced to Portraiture focusing Q. What clues did Reproduction of
Class on Goya’s Don Manuel and Edward VI as a Child by Goya provide about Goya’s Don Manuel
Discussion, Hans Holbein the Younger. the boy’s age?
Activity Q. What in the Pencil and paper
Lesson Ideas: portrait makes you
1. Look at the Don Manuel reproduction and go think the boy is, or is Crayons
over the CK questions. not, happy?
2. Sit across from a partner and draw a portrait of Q. What do you
their partner. think his family
wanted this portrait?
Then we’ll hang them all up for a portrait gallery. Q. Where does
young Edward seem
to be looking?
Demonstration Students will be introduced Self Portraits, Vincent Q. How would you Reproduction of Knowledge
Class van Gogh’s Self Portrait and Triple Self Portrait by describe almost all Vincent van Gogh’s Modeling
Discussion, Normal Rockwell. of the lines in this Self Portrait and Patterns
Activity portrait? Triple Self Portrait Creativity
Lesson Ideas: by Normal
1. Look at Triple Self Portrait by Normal Q. Van Gogh was an Rockwell.
Rockwell and van Gogh’s self-portrait unhappy man. Why
reproductions. do you think he used
2. Go over the CK Q’s. the swirling lines to Pencil and paper
3. Compare the background of van Gogh’s self- describe himself?
portrait with Mona Lisa’s background. Mirror
4. Draw a self-portrait using a mirror. They can Q. What do you see
add things to their portrait that can give clues to around the easel of Crayons
their personality. Students can also show an the Rockwell
expression of a feeling that often portrays them. portrait?
5. Will you include any objects like toys, pets or
books?

Remember that the portrait does not have to look like a

photograph.

Demonstration Students will make a portrait gallery in the front of Q. What does a Reproductions of Knowledge
Class the room. portrait depict? Mona Lisa, Don Modeling
Discussion, A. A portrait depicts Manuel, and van Patterns
Activity We’ll hang all of the portraits up in the room from this a specific person or Gogh’s Self Portrait. Creativity
unit; Mona Lisa, Don Manuel, and van Gogh’s Self animal.
Portrait and the student’s favorite portraits they made. Q. Who are always
the subjects of a
Lesson Ideas: self-portrait?
1. Compare and contrast the similarities and A. The artist
differences between the Goya’s Don Manuel themselves are
and Vincent van Gogh’s Self Portraits. always the subjects
2. Write about the a famous works or a student’s of self-portrait.
work.

Question the students should be able to answer at

the end of this section:
1. What does a portrait depict?