1st Grade Abstract Picasso Faces

This week, I introduced Pablo Picasso and abstract art to my first graders. We learned about Pablo Picasso's life as an artist and we talked about Cubism as well. Students also learned about the difference between realistic art and abstract art. We focused on Pablo Picasso's famous painting, Three Musicians and looked at how the painting was made up of simple shapes like squares and triangles. We also looked at some of his female portraits and talked about the placement of the facial features. After, we created our own Pablo Picasso inspired portraits using paper and markers.

Three Musicians, 1921

Dora Maar au Chat, 1941

Once that was finished, we moved onto cardboard. I like to allow students to explore different mediums when learning about a new style of art or a new artist. We also focused on complementary colors in this lesson. Students studied the color wheel and chose two complementary colors that are opposite from each other. They painted these colors onto the cardboard and then moved on to cutting out different shapes for features.