Self portrait

Self portrait

Freya planned and lead this class

The previous two classes are lessons that I had planned and delivered with Freya’s assistance. The next two, ‘self-portrait’ and ‘cinematic photography’ are workshops that Freya planned and delivered, whilst I assisted and there to support and engage with the students as they worked.

This was for a year 9 group

This class was based on self portraitist and aspects of a persons personality. The activity was for the students to think about different ways they can capture their self portrait which may not be a typical portrait image that you would expect – such as a face. The students had to think about different aspects of themselves, and think of another way they can visually create what their portrait is?

Aims: For the students to think about different parts of their personality, and a visual representation of a part of their character.

Objectives: To draw/paint a self portrait of yourself that reflects an aspect of who you are, but not a traditional ‘face’ portrait.

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Introduction to the class: Who we are, what is arts for health? How can we use arts for health in our lives?

Young people today are faced with a lot of pressures, especially on social media, to look a certain way -this workshop highlights that we are more then just our ‘profile picture’. What other images can demonstrate our profile picture?

The group began creating a contextual mind map of who they are, what elements in their lives build up an image of ‘who they are’.

The students were a little confused so I decided to do a small contextual map of myself and my interests on the flip board so everyone could see. This helped them to visually understand what the aims and objectives were for the lesson.

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Here are some of the students mind maps:

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Using the available materials :

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We went around the class engaging with each student – helping them to think of ideas of what they could create to visually represent an aspect of themselves. It was really helpful for us and the students to confirm with them what they wanted to go with and create. This helped give them validation that they were thinking along the right lines, and helped us to connect, interact and create conversations about the workshop and the point of the activity.

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At the end of the session we viewed all the work and had a group crit.
It was great to see everyone’s individual personalities, and different ways we can consider out ‘self portrait’

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The images drawn are visual representations of the students personality, interests, dreams, aspirations.

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What I learnt? What could be developed?

I was there to assist the workshops and engage with the students to help guide them if they needed extra support.

I do feel that this workshop needed a little more direction, and visual aids. A blank canvas can be quite intimidating to fill, and the students were quite confused at first with what the aims and objectives were.

The lesson has great potential, I just think it needs more guidelines to help the students get a more focused idea on their alternative view of their self portrait.