Portrait Artist Study - Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley is an American artist.

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Image source

Image source

Image source

Image source

Image source

For our self-portrait study we looked at his work and then created our own versions, 

using zentangle blackline masters as the backgrounds.  

We chose to do monochromatic pencil sketches for our portraits (but next time would be sure to use cartridge/drawing paper rather than just plain paper, to make sure the zentangle lines under our portrait don't show through because the paper would be thicker.)

Here are some of our efforts!

The Paper Doll Project

With the recent tragedy of the mass shootings in Christchurch, my class has been talking about acceptance, tolerance, diversity and values.

Being in Southland we are not directly connected to the event of March 15th, but we all want to acknowledge how sad we feel about what has happened to people who should have been able to carry out their daily lives without fear, just as any New Zealander or visitor to our country should be able to do.

We are joining the Paper Doll Project to honour the victims and their Muslim community and to celebrate the special character that New Zealand has as a nation - one of many colours, creeds, races and religions.

We wish peace and aroha to all who are in this country - be kind to one another, that's all we ask. We are all human, we are all unique - we need to celebrate this.

2019 "Self-portraits"

Here are some of our finished portraits as inspired by Nate Williams (see original post here).

So happy with how they have turned out!

Artist study: Nate Williams

I am using Nate's work as inspiration for our beginning of the year 'me' art activities, thanks to an idea I saw on Pinterest: this is the lesson idea from Kathy at Art Projects for Kids

It will be a great way to do an 'about me' portrait to help my Year Sixes start off the year and brighten up our classroom straight away after the summer break.

I've made this slideshow with examples of his work, and this is also in the class blog-post.


Blog interview with Nate about his style and work        Portfolio: Painted Words site

Kathy's example of what we will be making; I will share our results once they are done!

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Here are some of the 'in-progress' photos - we decided to use sharpies for the words as well and we are then using watercolour pencils for the colours (much easier than mucking around with actual watercolours!)