It's Kindergarten Mona Lisa Time!

 Mona Lisa...Mona Lisa...we adore you...
Now I know some of you out there feel that this painting is overrated and perhaps it is. But we cannot deny that it is one of the most famous and recognized images in all the world. Because of that, I feel it necessary to expose my students to her early. In fact - she plays a major role in my art classrooms. I use her as a quiet signal to let students know I need their attention. I say "MONA!" and they respond "LISA!" and stop, look, and listen for directions.

This year - thank you Pinterest - I found a sign used by Scott Russell that uses the Mona Lisa as a guide to how they show they are ready to begin class or to be a good listener - and it works! You can see Mr. Russell's sign here and my adaptation below.

In one of my Art rooms I even have a section of a wall dedicated to Mona Lisa parodies. I'm always on the lookout for new ones!

But - on to the project! At the beginning of the school year, I introduce Mona to my Kindergarten students and any new to me students. I simply tell them that it is a very famous painting and that we will talk about it later in the school year.  Usually the beginning of third quarter I concentrate on teaching portraits to many of my grade levels. As part of the portrait unit for my Kindergarten, we use the Mona Lisa to learn about proper placement of features on the face and begin to learn how to draw the basic shapes.



I'm always so impressed with how these simple drawings turn out. Many of my older students look at them and think the Kindergarten students can draw better than they can!

These drawings always bring a smile to my face - a simple quiet smile just like Mona Lisa.


Here are some of my favorites from this year - 

If Leo Drew Me

Every year I have all my students do a self-portrait. Each grade level does a different media or technique. Some years I change the lesson to go along with a theme or artist we might be studying at the time.

This past year my 4th grade students were exploring Leonardo da Vinci. I decided to combine their self-portrait project with Leonardo's Mona Lisa in some way. I had the students fold a paper in half like a greeting card. On the front I instructed them to draw the Mona Lisa with pencil, paying attention to line and value as they replicated Da Vinci's famous painting. I told them not to worry about the face at all - just to draw the outline of the face and leave it blank. Which is so not what I usually do when having students look at the Mona Lisa. Usually we would explore the face - especially her smile. Not this time! When they finished with the drawing I used an x-acto knife to carefully cut out the face (open paper up and place a piece of cardboard under for ease in cutting and not to damage the other side of paper).

The next class we discussed who Mona Lisa might have been and why they thought Leonardo drew her and what was around her the way she did. They talked about the background, about her clothes, and her facial features. I asked the students to think about if Leonardo was to draw them - what would the picture look like? What would they be wearing or holding? What would be in the foreground, middleground, and background?

We went over the basic placement of features on the human head and then students traced the face hole that I cut out so that when they opened the folded paper they had the shape of Mona's head - which would now be their head. They started with that and drew a self-portrait on the opened paper. I reminded them to think about what it would look like if they were posing for Leonardo da Vinci.

The students had a fun time with it and the results were fun. I displayed these by gluing them to a mounting paper and hanging them up with a push pin placed in the upper left corner. This way viewers could open up the paper to view the drawing on the inside.

Here are two examples: