Early Childhood

The Essential Questions
How did Pablo Picassoʼs art innovations inspire new ways of seeing the world?

Objective
Students will explore Picasso’s artistic style and techniques to create unique pirate portraits.

Materials
teacher-created pirate template printed on construction paper, visuals of Picasso’s work, visuals of pirates, tangrams, pencils, black markers, colored markers, crayons and oil pastels

Procedures
1. Share Picasso’s cubist and abstract portraits, focusing on geometric shapes, asymmetry, and bold colors. Discuss how Picasso broke the rules of realistic art to focus on expression and imagination. Then show visuals of pirates with different expressions. What shapes can be seen within the pirates’ faces?
2. Prompt students to imagine what a pirate would look like in Picasso’s style. Encourage them to think about the shapes of features such as eye patches, hair styles, jewelry, and hats, but in shape forms. Lay tangrams on top of the pirate handout and demonstrate how to trace with a pencil and build a face using the different shapes.
3. Students trace over their designs with black markers to mimic the bold lines of Picasso’s work, then switch to bright colors to fill in their portraits. Encourage them to personalize their work and add patterns to areas like clothing.
4. As students are working, have them pause for a gallery walk to see what their peers have created. Encourage them to compliment each other’s work and describe what they are seeing.
5. Students display their pirate portrait and describe their creative choices. Lead them in a discussion on how each piece reflects Picasso’s influence while being unique to the student’s views.

Assessment
Students answer three sentences about their pirate in writing: What was your pirate’s duty on the ship? What was their ship’s name? What was their life like?

Lauren Gift is a kindergarten teacher at the OʼQuinn Schools of Porter-Gaud in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.