Tales from the Traveling Art Teacher!: Mona Lisa Parodies with 6th Grade

This is a project I like to do at the end of the year with my 6th grade students. In the end, the major materials are packed away, paint is tricky, and students are squirl-y. What better way to end the year than with a humorous project?

I follow an art history curriculum with my 6th grade. We start with Prehistoric art, then end with the Renaissance. For the Renaissance unit, I focus on Leonardo DaVinci and his famous painting, the Mona Lisa. After spending so much time on Pinterest, I found a vast number of Mona Lisa parodies, which inspired me to change my project this year into the parody project. In the past, it was "The Mona Lisa I Know," which didn't excite the students as much.

The materials for this project are easy. White paper, pencils, colored pencils/crayons/markers to color, black markers to trace. In our schools, we have laptop carts for rooms to check out, so I reserved time in advance for my classes with the homeroom teacher.

After showing a Powerpoint about the Mona Lisa and parodies (I attached a few images I used in the Powerpoint), I explained to the students to find an image of a character, cartoon, or person they wanted to use for their parody. I explained the biggest objective was that the image used had to be drawn into the pose of the Mona Lisa. The drawing then had to be colored and include a background.

The fact that the students had a chance to 1. use a laptop and 2. choose their on image was the popular part of the project. I do have a line of students that attempt to line up in front of me and ask me to draw the image for them, but I purposely put a slide in the Powerpoint that stated how the drawing what the major part of the grade and that I do not expect an exact replica of their chosen image.

After the students finished their projects, I loved so many of them that I couldn't help taking pictures of everything. Here are a few finished examples that crack me up!