KItah Daled’s Portrait Thread

This year, the children explored portraiture in some very unique ways. They recreated their image with watercolors, cut paper, clay and loose parts, yarn, and wire. They even made portraits of one another by tracing a friend’s face onto transparency film.

Kitah Daled Makes Clay Self Portraits

The children created their facial features on circular slabs of air-dry clay using loose parts. This provocation continues the thread of clay sculpture from last year. 

Rachelli also decided to use chains to create her face. She grabbed a clump of chains from the jar saying excitedly, “Look!”

Jackson pointed out the row of sea glass pieces along the bottom edge of his clay. “Look Morah! Mine has a beard!” 

Barak chose two clear pieces of sea glass and placed them on either side of his clay circle saying, “These are my ears.”

Kitah Daled’s Partner Portraits

The children were offered sheets of transparency film and Sharpies. Morah Jessica told the children that they would be making partner portraits, continuing the thread of portraiture. 

The children each sat next to a friend. One child held the transparency up to their face, while the other traced their friend’s features using permanent markers. The child doing the drawing selected what color to make the hair, eyes, nose, mouth.

Once the drawing was completed, they switched roles. The most challenging task appeared to be keeping the film in place for the entire time.

Cut Paper Portraits with Kitah Daled

This portraiture provocation was inspired by giant googly eyes Morah Jessica came across at an estate sale.

The children found these hilarious.

Along with the googly eyes, Morah Jessica presented the children with construction paper, scrap paper, scissors, glue sticks, and collage boards (to use as a base.)

Zev cut a mustache and beard out of scrap paper. “I made me as an old man!”

Dov cut a round shape and glued it to the top of the head to create a yarmulke. Casey said “I need to make long hair.” She cut long strips of pink and blue paper and layered the strips around her paper face to create “rainbow hair.” Some children cut small, thin, rectangular strips of paper to make eyebrows.

Kitah Daled’s Watercolor Portraits

The children were each given a sheet of watercolor paper, a watercolor palette, a paint brush, and a mirror.

Morah Jessica put out jars of water for the children to share. She showed the children how to rehydrate the paints and rinse their brushes before switching to a new color.

Many of the children depicted their image in a fantasy colors scheme rather than a realistic portrait.

They enjoyed creating sort-of animated versions of themselves with brightly colored hair and skin.

Kitah Daled Makes Yarn Portraits

The children each chose a sheet of construction paper as their background.

They took a few minutes to do a quick sketch of their faces on the brightly colored paper referencing their reflection in a mirror.

Next, the children selected then cut their own pieces of yarn with which they would depict their various facial features.

Using their pencil lines as a guide, they brushed glue over them. Many children began making the outline of their head first. Morah Jessica showed the children how to measure, then cut the string to size. 

Some children scrunched their yarn to create “curly” hair.

It was also interesting to see the different methods the children used to create their eyes. Many created circles. Some children made little bundles of yarn. One child glued two small straight pieces down, making him look like his eyes were closed.

Kitah Daled’s Wire Portraits

In the Atelier, the children were presented with a wire in a variety of types and colors. There were electrical wires in white, green, and orange. There were silver and green floral wires, and gold, black, silver, and green twist ties. There was even a roll of silver armature wire.

The children each referenced their reflection in a hand mirror. They created the shape of their face first. Next, they chose a different color wire to create their hair on one end of the oval shape. They cut smaller pieces of wire with wire cutters and twisted them into two small circles for their eyes. Last, they shaped their nose and mouth out of small pieces of wire.

Morah Jessica helped the children connect their sculpted features to the circular frame. The children twisted the connecting wires until all the features were contained within the circular shape of their face.