Drawing

Portraits

Throughout history artists have painted and drawn portraits of people. The human face has always played a very important part of Art History. In the time before cameras portraiture was the only way of creating an accurate picture of someone. Even today portrait painting is a highly skilled and admired aspect of painting. Every year the "Archibald Prize" is awarded to the Australian painter who is judged as painting the best portrait for the year.

Project:

We will start with a simple technical exercise which looks at the proportions of the human face. Although we all look different, our faces all possess the same proportions. In our visual diary we will take some brief notes on and do a simple sketch that demonstrates this correct proportion.
We will then do 2 exercises to complete the task on portraits. The first is an exercise where will use the photocopies of" half faces" and draw the other half of the face. We will be using shading pencils in our visual diaries.
The second exercise is a self portrait. We will need to use the computer generated portrait from the school photos. We can trace the outline of the photos but do so very lightly. We are going to use the 4B and 6B pencils to shade the pictures so it is very important to have the tracing lines almost invisible. It is easy to darken a light drawing but it is nearly impossible to darken a drawing that is already dark.

During the period called the "Renaissance" (in the 1600's), a lot of study was done on the proportions of the human body. Great artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo took the skill of painting to new heights. It was during this time that artists first learned that even though all people look different, they all are in proportion with themselves and that certain rules can be applied to drawing people, both their bodies and faces.

The basic rules for drawing a face are:

· From front on the face is virtually egg shaped with the chin being narrower than the top.

· The eyes are half way down the head. Not up the top.

· The bottom of the nose is half way between the eyes and the chin.

· The ears go from the level of the eyebrows to the bottom of the nose.

· Their is one eye width between the eyes.

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