What is a portrait?= a picture of a person, group of people or

animal

• Portraits usually show what a person looks like as well as revealing something about the subject's personality.

* Photorealistic = artwork that looks like it was taken by a camera, very realistic

Why do people make portraits?

Not just a photograph, but an Artist’s Rendering

Self-portrait

realistic

Grant Wood

Self-Portrait (1918)

Morris Kantornon-realistic or abstract

Self-Portrait 1929 Malvina Hoffman limestone

Doesn’t have to be a drawing / painting… Portraits can also be

3-D

Family1986

Romare Bearden

collage on wood 28 x 20 in. Smithsonian American Art

Museum

can show multiple people

Using proportion: size relationship of one part to another

Step by Step Instructions:

• How to draw a head – video

• Series of tutorials that demonstrate how to draw a head, the features, and expressions

Claude Buck Self-Portrait

The head is an egg-shape: an oval that is narrower at the bottom

• Divide in half = the line where the eyes are• Split in half again= bottom of nose• Split in half again= mouth line

Guide-lines help us place the features of the face

• 5 eyes will fit from left to right. Make sure they are

spaced out evenly

The eyes shaped like footballs.

• The sides of the nose are in line with the end of the eyes. • Drop a line down from the eyes to show where the side of the nose is.

The end of the nose is a U shape. The nostril cover is like a C.

• Drop a line from the eye pupils to show where the

edge of the lips are.• The top lip has a “lip

dip” in the middle.

The mouth is no wider than the space between the pupils of the eyes.

To make a smile:

Erase the edges of the mouth and redraw the

lines upwards

To make an open mouth smile:

Create a second bottom lip

To make a frown:

Erase the edges of the mouth and redraw the

lines downwards

Open frown= add another bottom lip

If you have drawn an open mouth you must lower the chin

Only the bottom lip moves when you open your mouth

Lower the chin the same amount as you opened the mouth.

To open a mouth really wide:

Lower the chin and erase the old chin line.

The top of the ears is in line with the eyes

The bottom of the ear is in line with the bottom of

the nose.

The ears are C shapes that are a little wider at the top than the bottom

The line of the neck comes down from the

eyebrow ends.The shoulders start in line

with the bottom of the chin.

The shoulder line is straight but slanted down slightly

Think of how the person’s hair is styled. How long it is, straight, wavy, where

is their part?

Once you have drawn the hairlines, you erase the head line

Chuck Close= artist known for his large photorealistic portraits

-Born 1940

-Masters from Yale University

“A face is a road map of someone's life. Without any need to amplify that or draw attention to it, there's a great deal that's communicated about who this

person is and what their life experiences have been.”

His Hard Life:

• He was big and clumsy and not very athletic. Because he was dyslexic, everyone considered him dumb and lazy. He was told to forget about college. He couldn't play sports because he couldn't keep up with his friends.

• Father died when he was 11, mother got breast cancer, grandmother got Parkinson’s, he was sick with kidney disease himself.

• Bald at age of 20• The only thing to help him cope was art; he

knew at age 4 he wanted to be an artist.

More set backs…

• At the age of 49 another disaster struck. He suffered a spinal blood clot which paralyzed him from the neck down

• His biggest fear was that he would never make art again.

• But his wife insisted and he fought and returned to painting, but with a new style this time. First, he held the paintbrush in his mouth. Now he’s regained movement in his arm.

• still alive today Watch Chuck in his studio

Notice the hole in the floor and brace on the wall where the canvas can be lowered and rotated so he can reach all sides to paint.

More Chuck Video

• uses the GRID method to enlarge photographs to make large paintings. Brace to hold brush

-grid squares are then filled with concentric circles, squares, hearts of different colors

• First PHOTOREALISTIC artist

Sometimes people mistake his drawings for photographs

I wasn't a good student, I wasn't an athlete, and I think that helped focus me early in my life. I distinguished myself by being more intensely engaged and more intensely focused because I knew if I blew this art thing, I'd be screwed.

• Known for his large PORTRAITS [of mostly family and himself]

Notice his range of VALUES he can reach with only fingerprints.

VALUE = Lightness or darkness

Brad Pitt chooses Chuck Close to photograph him"You can't be the fair-haired young boy forever," says Close. "Maybe a photograph of him with his crow's-feet and furrowed brow is good for him. It humanizes him. It makes him less of a cinema god and more of a person." Plus, if you slowly move the cover away from your face, Pitt appears to age in reverse

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