Use this article as a basis for an “issues” project which debates and depicts the implications of ageing, and manipulating the face artificially.

Show pupils the painting “We Are Not What We Seem” by Barbara Kruger. Ask them to explore their own self-image in two ways. First, they can consider the ageing process by researching photographs of their parents or grandparents, and themselves, and producing a series of drawings that demonstrate several stages in the process, from themselves to their older relatives. Next, show pupils “Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland” by Richard Hamilton. Ask them to select a feature of their face that they would most like to alter and use digital means to replace this feature with one selected from another famous person. Use this as a basis for a painting of themselves combined with another, as an idealised large-scale front-face self-portrait.