Fractured Portraits

Post date: Feb 17, 2014 7:43:02 PM

This has been an increasingly successful assignment in terms of its ability to challenge students. Not every student's drawing is impressive but it is a struggle hard fought and won for most. If I can get across what's expected of them and they follow the process even if the assignment isn't competed to a brilliant polish it still get's them practicing the essentials.

The way this project starts out is simple, students take four photos of varying angles/positions of their face. Each one is a close up so that only the face is in the frame. Then they cut up their photos into one inch squares and scramble them. They are asked to glue down about 24 squares, some do more, some do less, and they take this scrambled portrait as their reference. They draw their reference in 2-2.5 inch squares on a sheet of 12x18 in. paper.

What I want this assignment to do is relieve them from the worry that it looks "right" because they're just drawing a little bit or piece of their face. And then I challenge them to get the placement of each part perfect in the square, and I challenge them to render everything with the correct value. This is very hard, too hard for most. But the struggle and repeated challenge gets them somewhere new. Certain squares turn out great, others not so much, it also becomes apparent how they think. I often spend an equal amount of time working on placement and shading with them.

Below is some examples of successful drawings, and here's a link to the assignment.