Start by showing your students a few examples of face shapes: round, triangular, heart-shaped, oval or square. Show students a slide show with pictures asking them to identify the shape of each face they see. Students will have to look in the mirror to establish their own face shape and start to work from this basic shape. Demonstrate a few techniques of shaping polymer clay, including pinching and pressing the surface. Roll a ball of clay and make a clay rope, explaining that this is called a clay coil. Introduce a few working tools such as a needle tool, which helps to carve details. Allow students to build their self portrait.
Ask your students to tell you about their favorite cartoon characters and allow each student to spend one minute describing one character's appearance. As an alternative, give your students a few examples of cartoons or claymation characters and ask them to look at the portraits and figures and break down the characters into basic shapes such as spheres, cylinders or cubes. Give your students the task to create a self portrait as a cartoon character. Offer a few suggestions to your students to use clay coils for the hair and clay balls for the eyes or nose.
Sculpey is suitable for making animal figurines because the students only need to make a few basic shapes such as spheres or cones to create an animal. Conduct a brainstorming session with your students and ask them to write down a few animals they enjoy. Alternatively, ask each student to write down names of animals that start with the letter representing their first initial. Tell each student to make a clay animal as a self portrait.
If your students are not experienced in modeling or you want to select a simple activity, you can create a three-dimensional drawing using Sculpey. Ask each student to bring a printed photograph with their portrait, which should be black and white. Place a sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper on the photographs. Students apply colored Sculpey clay to the photograph to create a drawing representing their portrait. When the students finish, remove the plastic wrap and the photograph and place the portraits on a metal tray inside the oven until the clay cures.