Subscribe to My Newsletter
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I don’t send any spam email ever!
November Self-Portrait: Turkeys
About the self-portraits
This is something that I took from my daughter’s kindergarten year. Each month, they would create a self-portrait that was themed to that specific month. It would feature either an actual picture of the student, or one that the student drew themselves. It is a cute idea that showcases both the student’s creativity as well as their view of themselves. For example, my daughter and her friends love rainbows, so their pictures always had some form of rainbow in them.
Making our own
So over the summer, I did these with my kids at the start of each month. In July, we kicked off Mom School with a week of lessons relating to space. We went to see Lightyear in the theater, so I let that influence the week’s lesson. The kids drew pictures of themselves as astronauts in space. Then I printed up pictures of them and they cut out their faces and pasted them onto their portraits.
November Self-Portrait
So for November, I figured why not make them into turkeys? Here is our November self-portrait.
The project details
I used heavy duty watercolor paper since we used tempera paint. It may not be necessary, but I find the thicker paper prevents puckering in the artwork.
You'll need
Heavy-duty paper
Tempera paint
Paint brushes
Markers
Picture of your child – be sure to size accordingly
First...
First, draw the grass with green marker.
Next comes the fun part
The kids decided what colors they wanted their turkey feathers to be, and in what order. We painted their palms brown and the thumb brown – the neck of the turkey. Then we painted each finger a different color.
A little advice:
Then I told them to carefully and gently place their hand on the paper where they want their turkey to be. It is important to remind them of a few things:
- It is a one-shot deal. Once their hand hits the paper, they should not move it. That’s where that little turkey is going to live.
- It is important not to slam their hand down as it will result in a print that shifts a little, thus smearing the paint and blurring the desired image. Slow and gentle is key.
- Kids tend to want to keep their fingers together and their hand tensed up. The turkey looks best when the hand is relaxed and the fingers are spread apart.
Finally, they cut out their heads from a printed picture of themselves. Once they find the right placement, they carefully glue it above their thumb. If they want, they can add a little red waddle from the neck.
Details
And that's their November turkey self-portrait. If the kids want to add more detail to the picture, they can. Some like to add a sun, some like to add trees. It is their artwork - encourage them to be creative!