Norwin School District
Art Lesson Plan
Miss Molli Brown
Unit/Lesson: 6th Grade Contour
Line/ Self-Portrait/Texture
State Standards:
9.1.5. A. B. C., 9.2.5. C., 9.3.5. A. F., 9.4.5.
B. D.
6- 43-minute classes
Objectives:
 Identify and draw guidelines used for proportion and placement of facial
features.
 Draw a self-portrait using contour lines.
 Understand and apply color symbolism to choices for colors in portrait based
on personality traits.
 Recognize and apply balance to portrait through use of color.
 Understand and create a textured background using a collage technique.
 Recognize the characteristics of Matisse’s painting, The Green Line, and
compare or contrast it with students’ finished artwork.
Procedures/Activities:
DAY 1:
 Students will review contour line drawing from 5th grade. What is it? What
part of the object are you focusing on? (edges/outline)
 Students will review blind contour/contour drawing and the purpose for
each.
 Objects for students to draw will be placed on the tables in front of them and
they will take the next 10 minutes to draw two objects using contour lines.
 Introduce to students that they will be drawing portraits for this project.
 Next, ask students to partner up and take turns drawing blind and then
contour lines of each other’s faces. This should only take about 7 minutes per
student. Students should be reminded to work slowly, and really look at the
shape of different features on the person’s face.
DAY 2:
 Review blind/contour line drawing. Distribute handout on facial proportions.
Students should have mirrors in front of them today so as the proportion
sheet is reviewed they can look in the mirror and see these proportions make
sense in real life on their own faces.
 Demo a quick example of how to begin a portrait sketch.
 Using newsprint paper, sw begin sketching their portraits in pencil. Focus on
the shape of the head, including the hair. Next, begin placing marks using
knowledge of proportion onto facial shape to show where features will be
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located. This should take 10-15 minutes.
Good, large sketching paper will be distributed next and students will use
the remainder of class to begin their final portrait drawing. Stress using the
side of the pencil and lightly.
3:
The first half of the class should be devoted to completing the final portrait
drawing on good paper.
Next, sw be shown how to trace over their lines with pencil so they can be
transferred onto poster board.
SW receive a piece of tape to adhere good drawing to poster board. Once
drawing is transferred students should fix any lines that may not have
transferred properly and then they will go over lines with a thin sharpie.
Using projector, sw look at Matisse’s Green Line. Read short writing about
the painting with the class, taking a moment to find each aspect mentioned
in the writing. Balance as a principle of design will be emphasized while
observing the color choices within the painting. A QUILT discussion will
follow using the following questions as a guide:
1. The writing said that Matisse used cool and warm colors to bisect
his wife’s face to show a shadow. Is there any other reason why
he might have painted each side a different color?
2. What color family relationships do you see within the painting?
3. How does Matisse tie his wife’s portrait to the background?
4. How do you think the painting would change if the stripe down
her face was yellow?
4
Example of finished project will be shown to students and a review of
complimentary colors will take place. Students will choose which
complimentary colors they wish to use for their face.
If a student chooses orange and blue for example, and they decide to use
blue for the stripe down their face, they should choose another warm color
for the other side of their face.
A demonstration of the watercolors will be done for the students after they
have chosen their colors. SW be painting their face, hair and shirt. They may
use neutral colors for their eyes and red for their lips.
With any extra time students can choose the colors of tissue paper for their
background. These colors should be the same ones that they used for their
face, this is what ties the background to the portrait.
5
First, sw review texture and collage using examples found around the room.
All students should choose the tissue paper they will be using for their
background (3-4 colors).
Next, sw view a demonstration of how to trace around the contour of the
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portrait, cut out the section where the portrait will go, and use watered
down glue to paste the tissue paper to the background.
Collage portion of project should be completed today.
6
Collaged tissue paper should be dry today so students may paint over top of
the tissue paper with watercolors making the texture of it stand out even
more, adding value, and adding a more painterly look to their project.
Students will complete an H-chart comparing and contrasting Matisse’s
Green Line and their own portrait made in the likeness of it.
Materials:
 12x18 inch white poster
board(for each student)
 12x18 inch white drawing paper
(for each student)
 Newsprint (3 for sketching for
each student)
 6x6 inch paper (to be used as
“blinders” for drawing, for each
student)
 Pencils, erasers
 Fine-tipped black markers
 Scissors
 Glue
 Watercolor sets (one per
student)
 Paint brushes & brushes for
watered down glue
 Water pails, paper towels
 Mirrors
 Overhead projector
 Image of Matisse’s Green Line
Vocabulary:
 Contour line/ blind contour
 Self-portrait
 Principles of design
 Balance
 Warm/Cool colors
 Texture
 Collage
 Negative/positive space
 Green Line by Henri Matisse
****Notes: When demonstrating to students how to paint portraits, make
sure to really make it clear the ratio of paint vs. water they should be
using. Too many students used waaaay to much paint and not nearly
enough water making the portrait very dark therefore making the features
of the face difficult to see. ****
Assessment:
Adaptations:
 Portrait drawing using contour
 Glue
lines
 Adaptive scissors
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Use of a complimentary color
scheme
Creating texture and a reflection of
colors with collage in background
Completion of H-chart comparing
and contrasting their work with
Matisse’s.
 Adaptive brushes
 Construction paper
 Precut people patterns (boy and girl
heads, hair, eyes, noses, ears, lips)
Resources: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/matisse/
http://www.directessays.com/viewpaper/76657.html
Green Stripe (Madame Matisse)
1905; Oil and tempera on canvas, 40.5 x 32.5 cm (15 7/8 x 12 7/8 in); Royal Museum of Fine Arts,
Copenhagen
In his green stripe portrait of his wife, he has used color alone to describe the image. Her oval face is
bisected with a slash of green and her coiffure, purpled and top-knotted, juts against a frame of three
jostling colors. Her right side repeats the vividness of the intrusive green; on her left, the mauve and orange
echo the colors of her dress. This is Matisse's version of the dress, his creative essay in harmony.
Matisse painted this unusual portrait of his wife in 1905. The green stripe down the center of Amélie
Matisse's face acts as an artificial shadow line and divides the face in the conventional portraiture style, with
a light and a dark side, Matisse divides the face chromatically, with a cool and warm side The natural light
is translated directly into colors and the highly visible brush strokes add to the sense of artistic drama.
Matisse - The Green Line
Stylistic Analysis of Madam Matisse: The Green Line Henry Matisse, one of the
most influential members of the Fauve movement, was responsible for much of
the attention brought to it and its respective members. One of his works,
Madame Matisse: The Green Line, more or less serves as an excellent example of
what he was trying to accomplish in art: the use of color to express and
convey emotionsThe composition of the work consists of a portrait of Madame
Matisse in the foreground and a background divided into several distinct areas
of color. The division in the background is apparent in the juxtaposition of
the mauve, orange and blue green, with the foreground divided primarily by the
green strip itself, which runs down the middle of Madam Matisse s face and
separates the painting along a vertical axis. The background and foreground,
however, are rendered almost completely flat, so that they seem to become part
of one another, and Madame Matisse seems to become somewhat of a portrait
within a portraitThe space in the portrait is more or less two dimensional,
with only a slight hint of depth illustrated by a dark area of shading above
Madame Matisse s left shoulder. The perspective is entirely frontal with her
context, Matisse began his professional career as a lawyer and did not
seem to express lively, passionate moods that she experienced from time to
it would not be what it is today without his influence.
contour of her right cheek and chinPainting technique can be described as
Matisse s ideas about art, in which he took and developed them to another
same time, the hotter colors that are placed on the yellow side of the face
purity, and serenity.
He was able to use the initial ideas created in the
time. Here, the contrast may indicate that her nature was one of varying
ngled to the left and her head slightly to the rightColor, along
believed in the free and lyrical use of color and the right to falsify it
movement stood for: the lyrical use of color to create
an art of balance,