Fruit Face

 Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian artist from the 1500s who spent years working as an official court painter. He developed a style of composing portraits from fruits, vegetables, etc., which was uniquely his own. There's a great book about him called "Fruit Face" which is what I used to introduce this lesson. 1. Find lots of large, colorful images of all kinds of fruits and vegetables from either magazines or stock photos online. I found thatwww.iStockPhoto.comhas lots to choose from and are not too expensive. 2. Make color prints or color copies of all the images and distribute to the students, along with a scissors, glue stick and black construction paper. Show them how they can "build" a face by layering smaller, feature-like pieces on top of larger shapes. Careful cutting (removing all the background) will help make their face look nice and neat. 3. Lastly, the students will glue down all the shapes, starting with the background. Encourage lots of detail with clothes, accessories, etc.