Fernand Leger Paintings

By Agnes (Year 2)

Lesson Background:
I saw this lesson on Mary Making http://marymaking.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/fernand-leger-minimal-portraits.html a couple of years ago.  I tried it out with a group of Year 3 students with mixed results.  This year I wanted to give the lesson another go, so I changed a few of the elements- I changed the A3 paper to A4 because I found the Year 3 kids had trouble positioning the facial features on such a large piece of paper.  I also decided to use black markers instead of black oil pastel to draw the faces because we had a lot of smudges last time.  I think they have turned out really well this time- Well done, 1/2B!

Lesson Equipment (per child):
Acrylic paint (red, yellow, orange, blue, green)
A medium sized paintbrush
A lead pencil
A rubber
A sheet of A4 art paper
A black permanent marker

Lesson Steps:
1.  We explored the life and art of French artist, Fernand Leger, discussing his use of colour, line and shape.  We also considered how he managed to create strong emotions in his portraits with the use of such simple lines. 
2.  The children used a lead pencil to lightly draw some shapes in the background of their artwork.
3.  They then painted these shapes using brightly coloured acrylic paint (a mix of primary and secondary colours).
4.  We then left the artworks to dry for a few hours.
5.  Next, I drew some sample faces on the whiteboard and we explored different ways to draw eyes and eyebrows to represent different emotions (e.g. the iris hanging from the top of the eye for a sad face) and how to leave a white patch in each iris to look like light. 
6.  We also looked at different ways to draw noses, lips and hands and discussed how these different styles of drawing contributed to the mood of the artwork.
7.  The children lightly drew their portraits over their coloured backgrounds.  They were allowed to choose whether to draw just the facial features or the head as well.  During our discussions we talked about symmetry in faces and how to use symmetry to check if they had drawn accurately.
8.  The children traced over the portraits with black permanent marker.
9.  The children rubbed out any left over pencil marks and we backed the paintings onto black cardboard.

NOTE:  The first part of the lesson (up until the end of step 3) took about an hour.  Then the children finished it off that same afternoon in another hour block.  My students made 2 portraits each in this time.

Student Artworks:



By Ben (Year 2)

By Serina (Year 2)

By Paige (Year 2)

By Kayla (Year 2)

By Nive (Year 2)

By Ella B (Year 1)

By Jeff (Year 2)

By Angela (Year 1)

By Angie (Year 2)

By Austin (Year 2)

By Ben (Year 2)



1/2B's fabulous artworks