Grid Weaving Portraits
SEW, you are in WOVE with your drawings?!
Yes.... that's a cheesy line... in fact, this whole THREAD is so cheesy I'm in STITCHES!
But seriously, there's no actual fabric to weave...
This project focuses on you fine tuning your skills in portraiture, not just in a typical sense but rather as an attempt to use both gridding and weaving to create a new composition that includes the visible combination and juxtaposition of two separate but related images. You can have the drawing represent you or not, but the images must be conceptually connected somehow (i.e. Spiderman and Peter Parker, Batman and Bruce Wayne, a lion and a lion tamer, an artist and a pile of art supplies, a nurse and a patient or medical tools, etc.)
One image will be drawn in regular graphite pencil and the other image will use colored pencils to show the contrast. It doesn't matter which one is in graphite and which one is in colored pencil: the choice is yours.
Pay attention to the rules of facial proportions you learned in Drawing I... if you forget, please refer back to the Drawing I page that details Body and Facial Proportions for a refresher!
The medium is of your choosing, but you must maintain neatness and intentionality with your drawing and your weaving composition. You may have several squares next to each other for one image but then a couple spread out to show a transition between each image. How you select which squares to highlight which drawing is up to you: placement is key!
Procedures:
1. Choose two pictures that have a common theme or idea: at least ONE must be a portrait of a person! Find one that is predominantly darker and the other lighter. Cut them to the same size in something that is in even inches.
2. Cut the first picture into vertical 1" (2.5 cm) strips keeping them together at the top.
3. Cut the second picture horizontally in 1" (2.5 cm) strips.
4. Tape the vertical one onto some scrap paper on the top and weave the other picture over and under (traditional tabby weave). Square it up tightly and then tape it on the sides. Repeat this until all the picture is done.
5. Tape around all for sides with masking tape and begin to reveal some squares to show more of one picture and so forth until you like the composition. You can eliminate rows and squares that are not important.
6.On a bigger piece of drawing paper make a grid of 2" squares. This should be the same number of squares as in the design. By using the grid, enlarge outlines that are necessary to draw each square. Only the lines of hard edged areas not where there is a gradation
Your drawing will be enlarged double the size from the original papers. You can choose one to be in graphite pencil and one to be in colored pencil: there must be both!
Examples of grid weaving drawings...
