My grade 8 students have just finished doing a unit on self-portraits. After mastering (more or less) the facial proportions in a self-portrait colour pencil drawing, I then told them to break all the rules we’d just learnt and to create a Cubist self-portrait.  They did some research and together with a class discussion we boiled down the features of Cubism to these: straight lines, a narrow palette, simultaneous viewpoints, fractured background and no depth. They had a choice of media; water-colour paints, acrylic paints and water-colour pencils. Some chose to do a combination. Here’s how some turned out:

I found it interesting to note what aspects of Cubism they struggled with.  Some had a hard time restricting themselves to just one colour, others couldn’t get their heads around the face not needing to be symmetrical and realistic, others had trouble with combining different viewpoints of the face into one image.  Cubism really is a fantastic art movement for students to look at and explore.  It’s a start to them learning the rules – then learning how to break them!