Hands-On Studio Project: Character Portrait

1. Discuss the ways Grant Wood, Kara Walker, Leigh Ruple, and Dana Schutz develop narratives in their work. Use the featured artworks as examples.
2. Have each student identify an important person to depict. Invite the class to discuss how they will represent their subjects. Students should think about lighting, props, and background. Ask: What objects, environment, and poses will best reflect your subject’s personality?
3. Explain that students can work from life or from a photograph. If they choose to work from life, ask them to make sketches of their subjects for homework. If they would like to work from a photograph, instruct students to take several photographs and choose one.

1. When students have their reference sketches or photographs, have them create studies using watercolor or sepia ink.
2. Students might incorporate a repeating pattern to flatten the scene. Invite them to experiment with both painterly and realistic styles. Advise them to think about scale. Remind them to emphasize the details.
3. Instruct students to focus on the value of the forms in the work. Demonstrate how to use the white paper to highlight portions of their compositions. Advise students to begin with the lightest area in the scene and build to the darkest.

1. Students should experiment with the media they plan to use for their final portraits. Have them create color studies in their sketchbooks. They should mix a full range of colors, tints, and shades.
2. Students might experiment with warm or cool color schemes to emphasize a particular mood in their compositions. Ask: What colors will evoke a particular mood or emotion from your subject’s narrative?
3. Students should make their final portraits. Just as with the monochromatic studies, instruct students to focus on value and form. Remind them to paint the highlights first and then develop the shadows.
4. Remind students that they can incorporate mixed-media elements to help illustrate details about their subjects.

1. Lead a class discussion. Ask: What do the details in each work reveal about the subject? How do the colors, values, and patterns reflect both subject and artist?
2. Have students complete the “Artist Statement: Character Portrait” skills sheet.

1. Did student display an understanding of how artists develop portraits with narratives?
2. Did student successfully develop a portrait that represents the subject?

—Prepared by:

Heather Drayzen

Salk School of Science

New York, New York