UNIT 4: Big Format Portrait

UNIT 4: Big Form Portrait Project

DUE: Wednesday, April 4^th

You will create a graphic, mixed approach portrait of anyone you choose using these parameters:

Supplies:

·      A prepared surface of at least 3 x 4 feet and not larger than 4 x 5 feet, dimensions within those parameters of your choice

·      **You may experiment with house paints: Latex sample house paints or mixed quarts from lowes/home depot/or any other home paint retailer who provides sample containers.

·      Acrylic paint

·      Oil paint

·      Appropriate PRINTED source material that is well considered and invested in- like, images of other art, post cards, your own photos, someone else’s, books, magazines, ephemera.

For this project you will be executing a portrait / picture by building or breaking down an image into flat hard edge shapes. You will be combining pure color, some naturalistically painted shapes, and some pattern, all in the same single work. Look carefully at your selected artists to give you an idea about how to approach this project.

Portrait:

Find an image for a portrait you would like to execute. Let the portrait also include part of the whole figure, so that you are not only painting a face. Allow hands, shoulders, or, even more of the body to be present for your portrait. You may use an image of your own, someone else’s, or an image from a found source, but it must be photographic.  You may also choose to collage a composition for your portrait by combining a variety of figurative sources like other paintings compositions or other figurative drawings or photographs.

7-9 total shapes:

to create our composition, We will then work on breaking the portrait / composition down into a total of 7 – 9 shapes, or big forms.  You must adhere to the only 7-9 TOTAL SHAPES RULE: This is a great way of problem solving a composition. You will keep the edges between shapes sharp and soft, sort of like a collage.

Thumbnail sketches:

We will make at least 3 thumbnail designs to find the most pleasing and dynamic composition. You may make collages as sketches or color in your sketches.

Make Color Samples:

You will come up with a 5 color scheme for your painting- this theme must be inspired by a found source and chosen based on color sampling. Find the source anywhere! Another painting, ad design, clippings photo’s greeting cards- anywhere that inspires you. Make few different samples.

** If you want to use acrylic paint--Once you find the colors, you may find the closest match at the paint department at a decorator store. It may help to use cups with lid to store your paint in. You may need to thin your paint down into a flat and even liquid consistency to get nice flat even shapes.

Pattern:

Add at least 1 pattern to your composition and not more than 2. You may use a found source for this pattern, or create your own. The colors may match with your scheme, or may contrast.