ART SAVES LIVES INTERNATIONAL
presents
an exhibition of personality portraits
by the children from Bursledon House
inpatient paediatric/psychiatric unit
at

http://www.thearthousesouthampton.org/
Artist Charlotte Farhan started doing self portraits as well as friends and eventually customers. It began by Charlotte being challenged to put her personality into her “Self Portrait—Alter Ego” by a gallery owner. Charlotte began to engage in portrait art and self exploration as well as the philosophy of identity. Now Charlotte challenged the children from Bursledon House to explore their personality through art. By creating a creative therapy technique that allows you to identify core self beliefs, likes and dislikes and can help identify low self esteem which then can be later addressed.
Charlotte asked Lisa Reeve ASLI’s newest artist in residence to participate and work together on the project.
To engage Lisa as well as the children.

The Personality Portrait Questionnaire
Use these questions to get your creative process started.
Write them down, take your time, find inspiration and be truthful to your self.
1. List your 4 favourite colours and any colours you dislike. Ask yourself why you picked these colours?
2. Tell yourself your best and worst features and why?
3. How would you describe yourself in two sentences?
4. Who are your idols, who do you admire and look up to? (pick 4 at most)
5. What is your favourite style? What do you like in design, fashion, décor and graphics, what visually stimulates you?
6. Pick 3 (of each) which represent you: animals, places in the world, food and books.
7. What are your passions and hobbies in life?
8. What are your fears and dreams?
9. When was your best day and worst day, what happened?
10. How do you think others see you and how is it different to how you see yourself?
Enjoy the exhibition and the children’s creative writing

and courage. It is also my favourite animal.
In the pink quarter there is my family.
In the red quarter there is a happy dwarf. He has an axe in his
hand and a pointy hat.
In the blue quarter is me playing cricket, I have included this
because I enjoy playing it.

The main colours I chose for my portrait were blue, pink, black and white. This is because these are my four favourite colours. In my portrait I have featured a small black web and spider in the corner, as they are things I do not like and felt to include bad things as well as good.
Also included was a Pikachu tail, this is because I enjoy playing Pokemon
and it has been something I have played for a few years. I drew my face in
the portrait although I gave myself cartoon like eyes. This is because I enjoy watching and reading )Japanese cartoons known as Anime and Manga. I included eyes of a similar style to the ones my favourite characters from them have. As well as these I have included one cat ear, this is because I love cats. They are one of my favourite animals.
M, Age 16

Hart. She is really funny and I hope to meet her one day. I drew Miranda because she
really inspires me to be really funny and bring out my real personality’ Since I have been in hospital I have been watching lots of her sitcoms that are normally on BBC One and DVD’S
The features
The microphone
I chose the microphone because she does
a lot of stand up comedy al! around the world.
I haven’t seen her live yet but when I do I will
be really happy 🙂
The wedding dress
The wedding dress represents her in her
sitcom where she doesn’t want to get
married. I drew the wedding dress because I
love her comedy.
Morcambe & Wise
I wrote the phrase Morcambe & Wise
because when Miranda was younger these two men were her heroes and that was where
she found out that she wanted to be a
comedian when she was older.
The Union Jack
I put the Union Jack in this portrait because
she is from England and I thought it would
look impressive on the portrait.

borders in my favourite colours they are purple, green, yellow and
black. Green and yellow are friendly and playful colours and they reflect me. Purple and black are just colours that I found appealing to me.
D, age 12

which are Nice stuff, bad stuff and things I like to do’
In my self Portrait on the left side of the painting are my
favourite colours Purple, Green, Blue and Red’ I also like
having fun in theme parks and playing Minecraft I
decided to include the icon for Minecraft’ The foods I like
are spaghetti bolognese and pizza’
In the right hand corner, there is the nice stuff’ People
think of me as a person who is happy and funny around
people.
on the top of my portrait l have drawn bad stuff that l
don’t like. One of is pink because it is too much of a
girls colour. I didn’t like leaving Florida because I had such
a happy holiday going to lots of theme parks. I don’t think
spiders should exist’
By J

My portrait was just a Wight canvas now it
is a work of art .It shows me thinking with a
light bulb over my head. It is very bright
with neon colours it has squiggles and
patents my hair was bright orange with
curls at the end because that is how I have
always wanted to have it I like photos and
that is why I have a camera I have a pencil
because I love art I love my portrait
because it is very … me.
By B

My portrait represents me, by the use of pastel colours, lyrics from my
favourite singers ‘white lips, pale face’. I have also used flowers, as I see
flowers as calm object- which kind of represents me.
Normal portraits usually have eyes, nose, ears- the usual face objects, but
not me. I can’t draw to save my life. So I decided to only use a mouth that I
printed out, and stuck it in the middle of my face. On the lips I used my
favourite lyrics from my favourite singer- Ed Sheeran. My favourite song of his
is ‘the A team’ hence why I used the lyrics from his song. To me the lips stand
out, and complete the portrait. I painted my face a pastel blue colour ( for the
love of pastel colours!) I then had a think, and decided to write even more
lyrics of my favourite to singers Ed Sheeran and katy perry. I choose a
particular song of katys ‘firework’ as it means a lot to me and my mum- she
played it at her wedding on the 4th luly 2012. My favourite line of lyrics from
her song is ‘do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the air wanting
to start again’.
On my portrait, I drew wavey hair and a lot of it! I painted this by making a
pastel coloured pink. I really like wavey hair, and my hair tends to go that way
or worse(knots) when ever I have a shower or wake up. I can often look like I
have been dragged backwards through a bush, other times I wake up looking
Like gods gift- doesn’t happen very often though.
I have painted the background, a pastel coloured purple. Purple is my
favourite colour, so I thought it would be a good idea to use my favourite
colour and it made the portrait complete.
At the bottom of my portrait I have yet again used more of katys lyrics’after
a hurricane comes a rainbow’ this means a lot to me, as it tells me that after
the worse has come, something good will come out of that bad thing.
By A

and are very bright (red, pink, purple, gold, black, blue and
yellow) which reflect my bubbly and crazy personality.
The reason I chose the colours for my hair are because I
would like to experiment with different colours and styles
when I am older (like Miss Radford my teacher!). My eyes are
usually brown but like my hair l would like to use contact
lenses and colour my eyes cool colours.
Why I chose particular accessories
I chose the paw because I adore cats. Also I have two cats of
my own. One is called Poppy and the other is called Barney,
they are both tabby colour ( gray and black) and they are very
FAT!!!!! and are extremely lazy, but I love them more than
words can say.
The Tutu and the ballet shoes are highly important to me
because l do ballet my self. I have done it since l was small. I
love it so much, I can be my self when I am dancing to the
music of swan lake and feel like I am in the ballet shoes of
Darcey Bussell. I would like to get so good at dancing that i
will be able to have block ballet shoes.
Symbols
The Union Jack symbol means loads to me because I am part
of the United Kingdom and I am proud of it.
By M, Age 12

He is my favourite.
My nose is my worst feature because it makes me sneeze. At the wrong time. by F, Age 6

because I believe that nothing in life should be taken too seriously, especially
when it comes to one’s own self-image. I chose to mostly use a variety of blues
and greens, because ! like the peacefulness these colours signify; I consider
myself a fairly mellow, !aid back person (the majority of the time!). The guitar
is drawn in the background because, like many other people, music makes up a
large part of my life and personality. The flowers were also included because of
my love for nature. The background is slightly plainer, but I tried to incorporate
the effect of clouds when tinted red at sunset/sunrise; ! find the sky the most
beautiful at this time of day or night.
E, aged 17

It has a Southampton badge on my portrait and my school badge. I really love football because when I look up to them it makes happy. I put my school badge to show which school I go to. I really like tigers because they are really nice animals and because they are cute. I like Southampton FC because they are 8th in the premier league at the moment THEY ARE THE BEST.
I used black paint because it is on a tiger and I used paint orange paint too. I like
oranges to eat. I like gold because it on the FC Southampton badge. My best feature is my foot because I like to play football and my worst is my hair because it hits me in my eyes when I play football out side in the rain. I describe myself as funny and really fun . My friends let me play the games all the time and my friends are Ben, Matthew, fake.
By L

My portrait mainly represents my love for music, using lyrics from a song
called ‘hopeful’ that my friend rapped on Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year.
The lyrics are quite meaningful to me as it’s saying to just be hopeful through
life because things will get better even if it’s hard. I also used written music
sheets in the bubbles because I used to play the violin and sing so I’ve been able
to read music since I was about 6.
Blue and pink stripes cover the background of my canvas because they’re my
favourite colours.
In the bottom of the picture I have a girls forehead, the curly brown hair is mine
and I also have put a flower crown on their forehead because I think they’re
really pretty to wear, especially in the summer.
By A

This personality portrait is about my granddad. I chose him because
he is an inspiration to me. This is because he has so many stories
and he’s pretty interesting. We get along really well.
I have separated it into parts. one part shows his time in the
Army in Cyprus because he loved his time in the Army.. Another part
shows how he likes to Play guitar- I have shown this by painting
on 6 gold lines resembling the 6 strings of his guitar. One part
shows his fears which are ghosts, because he has had a few
encounters which he likes to tell people about. The last part is the
sky because he likes the night sky. This is because he used to
camp out on the beaches of Cyprus.
I have tried to be creative and imaginative in this portrait because
my Granddad is an imaginative person.
T 13 years old



times but wise like an owl during the times when I didn’t know what to do. I put a spider and a ghost in
the corner of my design because they are my main two fears.
T, 13 years old

Thank you for visiting…
Before you go please visit our fundraising page and make a donation to Bursledon House so more projects like this can be done to help vulnerable children experiencing difficulties.
DONATE HERE
Also check out our On-line Charity Art Auction which has art donated from artists all over the world. All coming together to promote the message “ART SAVES LIVES” and help raise money for the children at Bursledon House.
HERE
One thought on “ASLI – Presents an exhibition by the children at Bursledon House”