Winter holidays are times for family and this project is something which celebrates family and is fun to make as a family. To add an little art history piece to this we viewed some age appropriate work by the artist Marisol. Using scraps of thin wood and mat board, children can create mixed media works which are raised relief in a simple manner. Children love working with wood and this brought on a big discussion of sculpture, carving and the importance of trees.
Here are some of my younger students working through the process like this:

First the heads were drawn on the wood with thin marker. One head for each family member and other significant beings: (pets were big and grandparents)

The back ground and bodies of the families were fashioned by personal choice and outlined with marker.

Finally the color was added with oil pastels and the heads secured with white glue.

Here is one of the family portraits.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 10:40 pm and is filed under home+children+holidays. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.