Title: The Mechanized Self-Portrait: Grids, Technology, and Portraiture
Medium: Painting
Materials: Digital photographs and prints, tag-board or heavy paper, rulers, pencils and tempera or acrylic paint.
Reproductions: A variety of paintings by Chuck Close spanning his career as well as images of works in progress from his studio.
Grades: 9-12
Time: To be determined by the Teacher
Learning Objective:
Through transferring their photographs using the grid-measuring technique to enlarge and copy it on to thicker paper, and then painting it using a limited pallet, students will learn that they can use paint to re-interpret a photographic image rather than simply copying it, they will also learn that by changing the colors of the image they can intensify or alter its mood.
Motivation/Demo:
Teacher: Today we will begin by looking at paintings by Chuck Close, an artist who deals with the relationship between photography, technology, and painting in each work he makes.
Describe Chuck Close’s painting process and explain how he uses a grid to transfer images from a photograph onto a canvas.
Show examples of his work and ask the students to identify the similarities and differences between the photos and paintings.
Ask the following:
Teacher: Like Chuck Close, you are going to start with a photograph, and transfer onto a larger paper using a grid...
Model the process of the grid transfer. By covering an image with a 1” inch grid. Then show how the image can be enlarged by making a matching grid on a separate paper and multiplying the size of each square 2 or 3 times. Explain that a black and white posterized image will show a range of values of light and dark by breaking them into simplified shapes. Model how to copy the contours of each shape in the face box by box.
Allow students to spend some time transferring their portraits in pencil onto the tag-board.
After they have had time to draw, call them back to discuss color and paint.
Teacher: Since most of you will be ready to paint soon, letŐs talk about color. We will use a limited pallet of colors. In this case we will use the following:
Teacher: Why do you think that I have chosen this type of limited pallet for you? Discuss but emphasize the following points:
Model how to mix and apply color.
(You may wish to include a color mixing exercise that will require your students to mix their four colors in various combinations sequentially.)
Hand out materials.
Independent work:
Assist students individually as needed.
Reflection:
How is using the grid-method different from drawing yourself in the mirror? Was using only four, pre-selected colors limiting or liberating? Why?
(Collect their answers at the end of the lesson.)
How did the different color choices that each artist made effect the mood and atmosphere of the final works?
Facial expressions and gestures help us understand how someone is feeling. What does body language tell us in these self-portraits?
Some people used a solid color for the background while others used patterns, some even used the backgrounds from their photographs. How do these different backgrounds affect the final image?