Star In Your Own Art: 3 Ways to Draw With Photos

Using photos of the individual child is a great way to inspire art making and today I am sharing three simple ways to use photos in drawing experiences at home or in the classroom.

For the first idea you will need to cut the child out of a photo and stick it onto the drawing page. I knew this photo taken at Halloween would be lots of fun because the costumes inspire the imagination but any action type photo works well. Try a photo of the child dancing or jumping or climbing. Or wearing a costume or uniform. I slightly enlarged and then printed the photo onto regular printer paper.

Start out by brainstorming ideas for the scene the child would like to draw (the image above was inspired by a much loved book series). We also talked about filling the space with colour just like a photo.

Alternatively, provide a strip or corner of an photo taken  and let your child create the rest of the scene. If it is somewhere they know well you will see them draw on a lot of the knowledge they know about the place…though in our house there is always a little imagination going on as well!

Visits to the beach, zoo, playground, your favourite hiking spot, or even looking out the window of a car or train all work well.

These are both great projects to integrate into art lessons about landscapes, depth of field and perspectives.

Thirdly, for more of a challenge, take a more symmetrical image and invite your child to draw the missing half. We used a silly face photo to make the image even more interesting to draw but completing a more typical self portrait works well too,

Finally, while drawing with photos is a challenging creative experience for school aged children, your preschooler might enjoy having a go too. Mine sure did!

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