Lots of people spend time talking about what a piece of art 'means'. This can sound a bit confusing, but try this out and you'll see why.

Have a go at our Portrait Game or try drawing and painting some portraits. See if you can make different types of portraits that look funny, weird, scary, clever and stupid. You can even try combining some of these - people often look stupid when they're happy or weird when they're clever!

Now compare your pictures with your friends' and see how different they are. Imagine the thousands of different ways you can show a scary portrait or a funny portrait. It really depends on what you find scary or funny, which might be completely different from what someone else does. You can understand why lots of people like to think about the meaning of a picture now: the picture often says something about the person that drew it!

See if you can change the look of your picture from serious to funny by making only one change. Not so easy to do, but it just goes to show how changing one thing can make a portrait look totally different.