How We Spent Our Summer Vacation - All About Me

When you are a kid in the summer, it is truly all about you. No school to suck up your precious time. No parents nagging about bedtime. The days are long and there's plenty of time for introspection. Who are you? What will you do? Where will you go? What makes you special? Artists have asked these questions since time began, and they've used self-portraiture to find the answers. This was our focus during the hottest days of July.

We played a portrait game to get to know each other better.

Albrecht Durer 1471 - 1528 - Durer created his first self-portrait at the age of 13 and went on to make at least 10 during his lifetime.

We began with a straight forward self-portrait.

Lots of improvement after a lesson on proportion, 

Vincent van Gogh 1853 - 1890 - Van Gogh suffered from mental illness and addiction and may have used self-portraiture as a way to untangle his mind.

Tracing hands and feet for "falling back" portraits,

It's all about perspective.

Self-portrait Go Fish is cut throat, I tell you. Too much drama for me.

Jim Dine born 1935 - Represents himself as a bathrobe in his art!

What clothing represents you?

Eventually the weather cooperated and we got to spend some time outside.

This was a fun project. We created the backgrounds then
traced our photos onto acetate to lay over the top.

Frida Kahlo 1907 - 1954 - Kahlo was nearly killed in a bus accident as a young woman. She was crippled for life and used self-portraiture to deal with her constant pain.

What's in your head?

On the last day we put all we'd learned into action,
creating any kind of self portrait we wanted.

This one includes the artist in her
favorite place with her best friend.