Chuck Close Grid Portraits

I haven’t posted about my 6th grade and up class in a while.  They have been working hard on their Chuck Close grid portraits.  This project takes a lot of time but provides a lot of learning value.  We first read about Chuck Close and looked at his work.  I had taken pictures of each student previously, edited the photos in Photoshop and printed them out with a half inch grid printed on top.  Students then had to make an enlarged grid of one inch squares on their drawing paper.  This was way more of a challenge than I had anticipated.  Using rulers accurately takes practice.

Once the grid was drawn, we began enlarging our photos in pencil.  Once we had an outline drawn, we began adding patterns to each square, keeping value in mind.  I brought in Zentangle pattern cards for inspiration.  Everyone is still working on these, but I wanted to share our progress.  Some of these are really turning out great.

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