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Appreciating Our God-Given Facial Features

We have spent the last four weeks creating amazing art in Year 1

Students were asked to draw portraits of themselves. We talked about the features God made on our faces, and every bit of detail making us the same, but different. Our focus this term has been to observe details to make our drawings realistic.

Next, we showed each other our drawings and shared our thoughts about them. Students had to practise giving each other ‘constructive feedback’ by using specific, gentle, and helpful words. We had to try and find a small area on our friends’ portraits that they could improve on and give them advice, like:

  • ‘You forgot to add your ears on the side’
  • ‘Perhaps, you can add some dots on your face for the freckles’
  • ‘Maybe you can draw your face in a rounder shape’

Our aim was not to be critical of each other but to be helpful and supportive, and to appreciate the way God has made us to see things. This was a little bit tricky to do, but we were reminded from the Bible to be effective communicators by using kind and truthful language. Our words are full of power, and we need to learn to use them wisely. We are also reminded in the Bible to give feedback to build others up, not to tear others down – ‘A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger’ – Proverbs 15:1

We then looked at the self-portraits we had made and, with the help of mirrors, drew a second draft of our self-portraits. Students repeated this process of drawing, reflecting, and sharing until they were happy with their final drawing. They coloured the portraits, using overlapping colour pencils and crayons to represent real colours.

We were all very proud with our final pieces of artwork. They look amazing! The self-portraits were completed with attention to detail, care, and, most of all, support from an encouraging community.

After that, we decided to have some fun by creating abstract self-portraits as a contrast to the realistic drawings. That was very fun to do! We had lots of laughs using lines, shapes, and colours in many different ways, and being creative most of all.

‘I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well’ – Psalm 139:14

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