The front bench of our school sometimes has a box or two of school supplies that someone has donated; generally just dated stuff (but sometimes very cool vintage stuff). A couple of weeks ago someone donated several boxes of art supplies. Like really good art supplies. All kinds of art papers and a big bundle of prismacolor pencils. I grabbed an armful of stuff and knew exactly what I wanted to make.
I needed to donate something to our school auction and always wanted to create something using artwork from my students. I cut 2x2 squares and asked each kid to draw a self-portrait. I got some resistance with "I'm not good at drawing". I told them it didn't matter...just sketch yourself and I'll take care of the rest. It is amazing how some of the kids got their personalities and features exactly right.
I took their sketches and outlined them in Sharpie Markers (thin for the facial features and thicker for the outlines). I colored everything and distressed all of the edges with a little ink. The idea was to create a stained glass window so that's why each portrait has four colors around it. I glued every square in place and then stitched a cross onto my "window" of students.
If you follow me on instagram, you probably saw a few too many pictures of the steps I took to create this but it was so fun (and so fun to share).
I love this!!
Posted by: Cheryl Jaeger | August 18, 2014 at 06:38 PM