Submitted by: Rebecca A. Shampine, Indian River High School, Philadelphia, New York
Grade Level: High School Advanced Drawing and Painting
This lesson is designed for my Advanced Drawing and Painting Class, grades 11 - 12.
A class discussion on portraiture took place at the beginning of this lesson. Students had previously created a pencil drawing of a person and that project was referred to frequently. Students therefore, had a similar experience to fall back on before starting this pastel portrait.
Artists who created were known portraits such as, Leonardo DaVinci and Vincent Van Gogh were discussed before the start of the project. Students were to select a person whom they admired and get a picture of that person. Then we went through a lesson on creating and using grids. Students learned how to properly use a grid to increase the scale when they create a drawing.
After lightly drawing 1/2" (1.27 cm) square grids on a picture of a classmate (or famous person that is copyright-free) while using a ruler, students will draw square grids on drawing paper. Depending on how large they want to make their final art, the square grids on the drawing paper can be from 1" to 3" (2.5 to 7.6 cm). Students then will carefully draw the contour lines inside each grid.
Students sketched their image lightly, in pencil first. Once this was accomplished they were allowed to begin their pastel drawings.Fixative
At the culmination of this project, students were required to mat their pastel portrait and they were entered into two area shows. One you see here won a first place and the other won a second place.
Resources- Posters of famous portraits
