Assignment #10: Emotive Self Portrait Project

Due: next week

Emotive Self Portraits

You are to pick two of the eight self-portrait drawings options below; make a self-portrait for each of your choices, with each drawing affecting some human facial reactions:

Surprise

Fear

Skepticism

Shame

Excitement

Anger

Disdain

Disgust

Be as melodramatic as possible.  Subtlety is great, but for drawings like this to work they need a theatrical quality.  Each drawing must be meticulously finished from observation only.  This means you may not work from photos or any other 2 dimensional references, and you must be sure that you draw as anatomically accurate as you are able.  To do this you must spend hours in front of your mirror at home studying your face in different poses.  Leave any self-consciousness at the door.  Each drawing should fill a page in your sketchbook.  Good luck.

Assignment #9: Matisse Self Portrait Project

Due: next week

You are to choose a Henri Matisse portrait drawing.  In the same manner as the Van Gogh project and the Ingres project, make a copy of the Matisse drawing and make a self portrait drawing in the same scale, style, and position as the copy. Matisse was all about line quality.  His line has an unselfconscious whimsical quality that is also extremely confident.  In copying his line you cannot possibly be authentically unselfconscious, but you have to look that way.  Spray fix!

There are a number of websites that are great image resources: artcyclopedia.com, and artchive.com, but also try Google images.  Be creative in how you search for images.  They’re definitely out there . . .

Hint: Be sure to choose drawings, not prints that look like drawings. 

Also . . .

Remember next time to bring your ink wash supplies: Higgins India Ink (eye dropper cap), bamboo brush (the biggest one you can find), and at least three cups for mixing washes.  I will provide the water . . .

Assignment #8: Ingres Self Portrait Project

Due: After Spring Break, along with your Museum Visit Paper

You are to choose a Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres portrait drawing.  In the same manner as the Van Gogh project, make a copy of the Ingres drawing and make a self portrait drawing in the same scale, style, and position as the copy. Spray fix!

Again, you are making two drawings total: a forgery and a self portrait.

There are a number of websites that are great image resources: artcyclopedia.com is chief among them, but also see what google images gives you.

Hint: This project is about following directions as much as anything else.  Make sure to read the directions carefully.  Also be sure to choose drawings, not prints that look like drawings. 

Assignment #7: Van Gogh Self Portrait Project

Due next week

Read Page 267-293 in Goldstein (basically all of Chapter 6).  Note how style might affect the power of a drawing.  You can be "wrong" sometimes from an observational point of view, but if you've made the right kind of marks your "mistakes" might actually make the drawing better!

You are to research/choose a Vincent Van Gogh portrait drawing.   (A portrait is a drawing of a person where the identity of the sitter is clearly important)  In your sketchbook, copy that drawing exactly.  You are to reproduce it line for line (in other words, if there are 384 lines in his drawing, there should be 384 lines in your drawing!), taking into account line quality, and not just location and direction  .  After that, on the next page in your sketchbook, make a self-portrait drawing in the same scale, style, and position as the Van Gogh drawing that you chose.  You MUST spray fix your drawings (outside) or they will smear into the facing page!

There are a number of websites that are great image resources: vggallery.com and artcyclopedia.com, among others

Review: So, you are to “forge” a Van Gogh drawing, and then make a drawing in the same style and scale substituting yourself in the place of the Van Gogh subject.

Hint: This project is about following directions as much as anything else.  Make sure to follow the directions carefully.  Also be sure to choose drawings, not prints that look like drawings.