# 8 Art Class - Self Portrait

This week it was time for self portraits. We started out looking at Frida Kahlo, She was the perfect artist to study for this weeks’ class. We talked about what a self portrait is, or can be. I wanted them to tell about themselves in the picture, not only focus on glasses, long hair and eye color, but also what they like to do, where they are from and who they are. That’s another reason Frida Kahlo was such an obvious choice; all the stories she tells about herself through her work.

The medium was basically the same as last week: a mix of collage and paint, this time on a canvas board. The results were very interesting (and I believe I learned a lot about my students this week!) and what always strike me is how differently they all started and completed the assignment.

Some painted the figure, cutting out nose and eyes from magazines - others painted the whole figure, and only used collage in the background. Looking back at their work, they are all really very consistent in their styles, even across mediums.

# 7 Art Class - Abstract Collage

On Tuesday it was time for abstract art! I wanted to combine the abstract with the collage, and it worked out well. I started out by talking about Paula Rego, a portuguese artist living in London. She is an interesting (and very skilled) painter with many different styles. In the 1960s she made some beautiful big abstract pieces in mixed media. We looked at some of her work and talked about form and color, as well as the different materials used. They all had very different ideas about what it was supposed to be. I thought it was interesting that it had to be something; a monster behind a tree, an old woman with flowers - it could not, not be something!

As oppose to our weeks of various still life, this time our conversation was all about shapes and colors - the students had to focus on the overall look and feel of the piece, rather than the right proportions. I sensed that they enjoyed this change of pace, and they created some interesting pieces. I think they did really well in cutting out odd (and what seemed random) magazine pictures, gluing them around the cardboard, and then connecting the images with paint as the last step. They clearly worked very spontaneously and that gave some good results. I was truly impressed! Next week we will continue the collage, but in the shape of self portraits...