ART · Week 2 · GROW · Identity in Art · Arts Award Explore → Bronze

Level Up the Portrait

Three attempts · One symbol · This is me

📈🪞🔣📷🎨

Today is a hands-on lesson — we learn by doing.

ARRIVAL TASK · do now, no help needed

Levels you up — or keeps you stuck?

Tap a card, then tap where it belongs. Have a go — wrong answers are welcome here.

While you wait: tell your partner one skill (any skill) you got better at by repeating it.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

LO: To develop a skill and record it in my arts log.

✓ I can run three attempts of one technique with a tip between.

✓ I can start a surreal “this is me” symbol self-portrait.

✓ I can log what I improved, with photos of every stage.

Success criteria: By the end you will have levelled up your Week 1 technique through the three-attempt loop, spent the improved skill on a surreal identity self-portrait, and logged “what I improved” with stage photos (AQA UAS ‘Creating artwork’). A Black History Month artist joins the wall as this fortnight’s inspiration.

GCSE Stretch: a development page in the sketchbook: attempt photos stuck in sequence, each annotated with what changed.

STARTER · talk task

Kahlo never just painted a face

On screen: a Kahlo self-portrait. Her face is there — but so are animals, plants, objects, sky. With your partner: pick ONE thing that isn’t her face and guess what it might SAY about her life.

Sentence stems:
“The ___ might stand for…”
“She included it because…”
“If I did that, my ___ would be…”

I DO · teacher explains

Level the skill, then spend it on a symbol

📈 The loop

Attempt 1 → kind, specific tip → attempt 3. Photograph every attempt: the gap between 1 and 3 is your evidence, not the polish of either.

🔣 Show it vs stand for it

A literal portrait SHOWS your face. A symbol portrait says who you are without needing your face at all — a storm, a compass, a half-open door.

🪞 This is me

Your surreal self-portrait starts today: one honest symbol, made with your levelled-up technique. Face optional; honesty not.

📓 Log the level-up

“What I improved” goes in the log beside the photo strip — the exact change named: pressure, edge, mix, control.

Misconception: ~~“A self-portrait must look exactly like your face.”~~ Kahlo packed hers with symbols; Magritte hid faces entirely. A self-portrait must be TRUE, not photographic — a birdcage, a storm or a garden can be more “you” than a likeness.

WE DO · together on the board

Shows it — or stands for it? Sort the portrait ideas

HANDS-ON · the main event

Level up, then make 🪞

Ground rule (60 seconds): symbols are personal — nobody explains theirs unless they choose to, and nobody decodes anyone else’s uninvited.

Station 1 · THREE ATTEMPTS

Your Week 1 technique, three attempts, one kind specific tip between. Photograph each in order — the strip is the proof of development.

Station 2 · THE SYMBOL PORTRAIT

Start your surreal “this is me” piece: one symbol, your levelled-up technique, dream-logic welcome. Stage photos as you go.

Station 3 · LOG IT

“What I improved” beside the strip — the exact change named. Ideas voiced or scribed first; key words in your own hand.

GCSE Stretch: sketchbook development page: the three attempts stuck in sequence, one annotation each — what changed and why it worked.

EVIDENCE · Arts Award Explore log (toward Bronze) · AQA UAS ‘Creating artwork’

Capture your evidence

Your strip + portrait stages are the evidence. Log it (ideas voiced/scribed first, key words in your own hand):

My name:

The skill I levelled up and the exact change:

My symbol, and one hint of what it stands for (optional):

Skills I used today (tick with your TA): Ability to learn · Creativity · Resilience

Feedback loop: your teacher will deep-mark one part of this in dark green and draw a Yellow Box. Next lesson you respond inside it in a coloured pen of your choice.

EXIT TICKET

Show what you know

1. Your development evidence is…

2. A symbol self-portrait…

3. Kahlo’s extra objects and animals were…