My Hero and Me

It has been a really busy summer here. My boys are out of school and we are in a million directions. I am also teaching a little bit at the OKCMOA over the summer and will be doing some outreach programs. I had a wonderful experience last week through the museum and that was working with children through Hearts for Hearing. They had a camp where campers got to experience many of the cool things downtown OKC has to offer. Their theme was heroes and when they asked me to come up with a project idea I had the perfect thing come to mind.

I actually saw this project done as My Teddy Bear and Me. It was a magazine collage with tempera paint project. I really wish I could remember who did this, if you know please post and I will link. I changed it up a bit but loved the idea! The kids did an excellent job as you can see through the works they completed! These kiddos rocked and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to meet all of them and work with them. Thank you Hearts for Hearing!

We talked about heroes and named some that are in our lives. They gave me the names of various people, their parents, family, teachers, doctors and more. They had to pick one to get started.

Workstations are prepped and ready to go.



First we used oil pastels to draw our hero on 10x8 paper. We used a heavy white construction paper. We added details and used a watercolor wash over the top. Set these aside to dry. You can use a hairdryer to speed the process along if needed.





Now we get started on our self portrait. We start by tracing our hand on a piece of construction paper that has been folded in half. When cut this will give us two hands.



Now we cut our head and begin with details like eyes, nose, mouth and hair. I had pre-cut shoulders and paper strips for arms.





Assemble self portrait on 12x18 construction paper. Use glue/gluesticks to attach. Arm strips are placed in an upside down "v" and hands are glued to the ends. (that "v" is covered by the hero painting later) When painting is dry it is glued on a piece of 12x9 construction paper to frame it. That is glued on bottom half of portrait. Arms are brought up and fingertips are glued to the painting to "hold" it.

These turned out amazing. I am going to post a ton of pictures. I can't resist sharing the wonderful work they did!

You will need:
-10x8 white construction paper for painting
-Pacon Multi-cultural paper for skintones
-18x12 colored construction paper for background
-12x9 colored construction paper for framing painting
-colored construction paper for body, arms, portrait
-Scissors
-Glue/Gluesticks
-Oil Pastels
-Watercolors/brushes/washout bowl
-Pencil for tracing hands