Picasso for Kids: Cubist Portraits

We love doing kids art projects in the style of great artists for the bimonthly Kids Get Arty series. This month we had fun doing an easy Picasso for kids activity— cubist-style portraits!

We went online and studied lots of different portraits that Picasso had done.  We talked about the differences between his work and portraits done by other artists and looked at other cubist style portaits to find similiarities.  The 4 year old, 6 year old and I all practiced drawing faces with big lines, different shapes, and varied proportions.

Then tried their own!  My 6 year old chose Picasso’s Head of a Woman (1960) to copy.  They used oil pastels and art canvas paper from CraftProjectIdeas.com.  They both loved the effect of the oil pastels on the canvas paper, my daughter thought she was just like Picasso!

My 4 year old chose Picasso’s Self Portrait (1907) to try.

While the kids both enjoyed the project it was interesting to see that my 4 year old felt much more comfortable drawing in this style than my 6 year old did.  She wasn’t as pleased with how hers turned out and had more trouble stepping out of her daily drawing comfort zone and trying something new.  This is why I love the Kids Get Arty series so much, it is a great way for us (the kids and me) to take creative risks and expand our art knowledge.  I definitely recommend doing it at your house too!

We displayed their art in these cool cardboard frames I had made for our front room.  I drew whimsical frame shapes onto large pieces of cardboard with oil pastels, cut them out and colored them in, so easy!  Then I used Command Poster Adhesive Value Pack, 48-Strips to stick them to the wall.  The kids art work is just taped on and can be changed out whenever they want.  We love how they turned out!

There are lots of art projects already linked up so go and see what others did this month and then try some of your own! It’s lots of fun!

Disclaimer: CraftProjectIdeas.com provided me with the art canvas paper for free, but all opinions are mine.  This post also contains Amazon affiliate links.