Masterpiece: Mona Lisa

1503-1506 byLeonardo Da Vinci

Lesson Plan

Keywords: portrait, proportion, texture

Grade: 1

Activity:Modern Day Mona Lisa

Objectives:

A. Identify characteristics of the art of Leonardo da Vinci.

B. Draw an exaggerated or stylized version of the Mona Lisa.

LESSON OPTION 1:

Materials:

•Photocopies or line drawings of Mona

•12"x18" heavy weight drawing paper

•pencils, erasers

•Markers, pastels, and/or colored pencils.

•Mona Lisa art print

•Funny Mona Lisa PowerPoint

Process:

  1. Ask students who painted the Mona Lisa?
  2. Introduce/review the art of Leonardo Da Vinci. Show examples of his work. Point out his techniques and style. Hand out photocopy or line drawings of Mona Lisa.
  3. Show PowerPoint presentation of Mona Lisa parodies.
  4. Assign students the task of creating a parody of one of Leonardo’s most famous works, the Mona Lisa. We are going to “Mock the Mona Lisa.” Students must take the original version and create a parody, satire, or exaggeration of the work in their own style. Remind students that it must be evident upon completion of their project that we are looking at a drawing inspired by the Mona Lisa. It should be fairly obvious what their inspiration was.
  5. Display student works together as a group display.

LESSON OPTION 2:

Materials Needed:

Colored construction paper, white construction paper cut in half (9x6), pencils, rulers, tempera paint, scissors, newspapers to cover the desks

This may be helpful to draw on the board as you go through the directions in the beginning.

Process:

1. With your pencil, lightly draw an egg shaped oval on the white construction paper, with the narrower side facing the bottom.

2. Add a neck.

3. Using a ruler, draw a very light line down the middle of the picture. Again, divide it in half horizontally (lightly). In the middle of themiddle horizontal line and the bottom, lightly draw one more line.

4. (On the board, label the vertical line “C” and the middle horizontal line “A”, the line below that, “B”.)

5. The bridge of the nose starts where lines A & C intersect. The end of the nose is at the B line. The ears start at each A line, go slightlyabove it and end down at the B line.

6. Add the eyes just under line A. The mouth a little less than halfway between the nose and chin. The inner corners of the eyes line up withthe outer sides of the nose. The outer edges of the mouth line up with the middle of the eyes.

7. Show the students that everything on the face goes below the A line, except for the eyebrows. Add the eyebrow arches above the eyes,above the A line.

8. Add Mona’s hair, clothing, arms and hands.

9. Put something in her hand that is modern, a lollipop, ice cream cone, a Barbie, whatever…let them be creative.

10. Color her in with the tempera paint. Here, they can combine the realism with modern art, so color choices are entirely up to them.

11. After they are done, have them make a frame to glue the Modern Mona Lisa on top of.

12. They select the color of paper, they can either leave it like it is, or they can get creative with their scissors and cut along the edge of theconstruction paper to make for a different shaped frame.

13. When done, make sure they sign their masterpiece in the corner (frame or picture).