Van Gogh Self-Portraits

Van Gogh painted several protarits of himself through out his life. I counted over 20 different ones.

"Since the invention of photography in the arly 1800's, portraits painted by artists were no longer needed to show what a person looked like. Van Gogh wanted his portraits to reveal what was on the inside - the psychological or spiritual aspect of a person." excerpt from Van Gogh and Friends.

We decided to try our hand at self-portraits too! The idea for this lesson came from Deep Space Sparkle. We didn't follow all her directions because we didn't have all the supplies she recommened. However, they still turned out great!

Step1: Trace with flesh colored pen around a template shape (and oval with a neck which I made ahead of time on card stock) and paint the inside of the shape with flesh colored water color.

Then we read a few books while the paper dried out.

Step 2: cut out the shape and glued it to a colored background.

Step 3: cut eyes out of wite paper and draw on the pupils, eyelashes, eye brows, nose, ears, and mouth.

Step 4: cut small lengths of yarn or embroidary floss for hair and glue it onto the head.

Step 5: add clothes under the neck.

FINISHED!

Max's Self Portrait.

Zak's self-portrait.

T.J.'s self portrait.