Kindergarten Self Portraits

kinderart.com/art-lessons/painting/kindergarten-self-portraits

October 3, 2017

Kindergarten students will learn how to draw self portraits and experiment with watercolour
paints for their backgrounds.

By Laurie McIntosh

What You Need:

Pencils
Erasers
Sharpie Markers
Scissors
Watercolour paper
Watercolour paints
Watercolour brushes

What You Do:

Have the students draw a picture of themselves with pencil on a piece of paper divided in
half.

Teach a lesson on drawing people (we used Mat Man from the Handwriting Without Tears
program).

Encourage kids to go back and draw themselves again in pencil. This time check for specific
body parts; head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, 2 arms, 2 hands, 2 legs, 2 feet and hair.

Teachers trace the pencil line drawing with Sharpie marker. Kids cut out the person leaving
an amount of white space around the drawing.

Have students use watercolour paints to paint a background for their person. (We chose not
to paint words or a scene. We encouraged them to paint lines, patterns, dots and more
abstract ideas.

Kids can glue their cut-out portraits onto their watercolour backgrounds once dry.

1/5
2/5
3/5
Display and enjoy!

4/5
About the Author:

Laurie McIntosh is a creative kindergarten teacher from Alberta, Canada. You can follow her
on Instagram at @mrsmacskinders or on Twitter at @lauriesmcintosh or @MrsMacsKinders

5/5