Monkey Portraits

My grade 2 students recently celebrated Chinese New Year with these monkey portraits for Year of the Monkey. These were inspired by the Pop Art Chimp paintings over at MaryMaking. 

After discussing portraiture and viewing some examples of famous portraits, students were given photos of many types of monkeys, chimps and apes and we discussed how to build up our drawings using basic shapes (e.g oval head, semi-circle ears, triangle nose etc).

Once the drawings were complete, students outlined them in permanent marker before adding wildly colourful painting using tempera paints. Some also worked back into their paintings with oil pastel once dry. 

I never stop being amazed at my very young students abilities to create faces full of such personality and use colour so fearlessly and expertly.