From an early age, children's artistic axpression is motivated by an inner need that makes the child's way of artistic expression a special educational value that should be nurtured, encouraged and developed. Visual language develops with the development of the child. With further observation of art works, the understanding of visual language and it's meaning becomes more complete. Through the developmental stages of children's expression, the child explores the world around him and gradually becomes acquainted with fine arts. The beginning of abstract thinking and richer verbal expression enable greater artistic abilities of expression. One of the most common motifs of children’s drawing is man. The development of human representation can be monitored through the developmental stages of the child. From a simple depiction of a man with several artistic elements in the first phase of a child's development, to a stage in which the human character begins to correspond more and more to reality with more and more details revealing the child's new knowledge and skills. Given that the child's artistic abilities are constantly evolving, the aim of this study was to determine the level of success of self-portraits of 1st and 4th grade elementary school students and to check how age and gender of students affect the performance of self-portraits. A survey was conducted in one elementary school that included two grades. The research included 19 first grade students and 24 fourth grade students who were supposed to display a self-portrait in pastel during an Art class. The type of research was quantitative. The method by which the research was conducted is descriptive. The research technique was grading, and the instrument for collecting data was a 3 - level scale with the categories of successful work, average work and unsuccessful work. Each category contains three performance criteria of success: visual language, motif performance and the use of art technique. The results of the research show that the 4th grade is more successful in performing self-portraits than the 1st grade, and that girls were more successful than boys in showing the same motif.