Family Self-Portrait
Students learn about the importance of animals to Indigenous people.
In this unit, students explore art created by Indigenous cultures around the world, with a focus on the traditions of Native American communities in the Pacific Northwest. They learn how totem animals were used to represent the traits of individuals, families, or tribes—serving as powerful symbols of identity and heritage.
Inspired by this tradition, students select an animal that represents themselves, with the option to include additional animals that symbolize members of their family. They draw and paint their chosen animals, and then learn about visual texture, adding a final layer of detail to enhance their compositions.
This project fosters self-reflection, cultural appreciation, and skill-building in both drawing and painting.
Good for:
All Ages
Student Examples
I chose to paint a squirrel because its traits sounded the most like mine. One thing that was hard was the trees branches were really hard to paint around so I covered up parts of them like the pointy tips. The most important thing that someone should know about my painting is that a totem animal is an animal that shares some of your traits. One of my favorite things about my painting are how the grass and trees are sharp and rough while the sky and squirrel are smooth and round.
Zeqe, 5th Grade
I chose the bunny because it had some of the traits that I thought I had too. One of the problems that I had was that when i was drawing the texture I drew a lot of spots on the bunny so when I painted it it took a really long time and I had’t expected it to take that long. One of the most important things to me is how after I painted a little bit of blue in the sky I painted white over it. My two favorite parts about it are there are different colors of purple on my bunny, and on the pink part of my grass where I added more paint it came out to a cool lumpyl texture and it kind of told me not to erase or get rid of your mistakes.
Vivi, 4th Grade
Animals in the Springtime
I chose hummingbird for my animal to paint. I’m not fast, but they are joyful and nice, so I chose the hummingbird. It mostly shows my personality. I added my family as animals, I actually did two hummingbirds. My mom is a butterfly and my dad is an ant and he is saying “why am I so small”. My little sister is a beaver. I liked painting it, it was fun.