Self Portraits

Art II Self Portrait Project

For this assignment we studied Rembrandt and his use of chiaroscuro. Students had to use the grid technique to create a self portrait with high contrast.

Materials:

• Drawing paper
• rulers
• camera and photograph
• drawing pencils and erasers

Procedures:

1. To start you will need a camera to take the student's photographs. I hung up a black cloth on the white board and put a lamp right next to it to create a spotlight. I had the students come up one at a time to take their picture. That night I edited the pictures on my computer and printed off a 4 x 6 black and white photograph for each student. 
2. The students began by griding their photograph and then creating a corresponding larger grid on their drawing paper.
3. Next the students drew their portraits with pencils.

Student Examples