Superhero Self-Portraits

It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  No, it’s the second graders! Students studied themselves to create their latest masterpiece-a superhero self-portrait.  They began by reading the story Picture Perfect by the Fletcher Walker Second Graders. 

Students learned how to draw realistic eyes, a nose and mouth.  They used the mirror to "tell" them how to draw their hair.  We studied the art of Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Ben-Day dots for this lesson.  Benjamin Day invented the clever method of creating small dots of primary colors to make multiple colors in comics.  Roy Lichtenstein utilized the BenDay dot idea in his many lithographs.

Students outlined their drawings in black and were required to insert BenDay dots into 3 areas of their picture.  They only used the primary colors, just like Roy Lichtenstein, so they had to be creative with how they colored their pictures.

This project also tested student’s creative writing skills as they described their superhero’s powers, origin, and secret hideout!