Collage Grid Portraits

A Modern Twist on the Classical Grid Portrait

​Grid are great for teaching students to break down complicated tasks into smaller manageable bits. In this case, a portrait. For students, it is often their first "successful" realistic project. For many teachers, it’s an annual tradition. It is for my Art 1 freshman. This year I gave them the option to work over top of a paper “collage quilt” made from discarded tests, journal entries, construction paper, magazine pages, painted papers and more, cut to 2 x 2-inch squares. I roughly organized them into bins and we used Elmer’s-soaked sponges to glue them onto our final draft grids. Students could randomly apply squares within their grid or take time to plan a palette of colors. My example uses mainly cool colors. 

​I photocopy a ream of paper with an 8x10 grid. I then print my student-provided reference photos (shared with me via Google Docs) on top of this pre-gridded paper. We use this reference image to delineate the outer contour of the portrait and paint that in with blockout white acrylic or gesso. We employ a drybrush technique so that the collage papers still partially show through the white.

​When that is dry, students go row-by-row and transfer the facial details into this negative space. Some outline features afterward with pen, others do not. I let them know it’s an aesthetic choice. Lines tend to make it look more graphic like Pop-art. We take a break to do a 1-day exercise in shading, emphasizing that my goal for them is to show light, medium, and dark shadows. They can do more nuanced shading, but my expectation is to see 3 distinct shaded values. They earn a classwork grade for this and then apply that knowledge to their portraits.

In the upper right you can see one page of our shading practice packet.

​I have graphite pencils, watercolor pencils, charcoal, and oil pastels available to them to work with. For every project I set three goals for students and three ways they can exceed expectations for a higher grade. Our goals for this exploration were:

• Professional gluing of squares, no lifted edges or corners.
• Proportional transfer of features (ei. Eyes are where they belong)
• 3 levels of shading; Light, Medium, & Dark.

 
To exceed expectations, they could:

• Plan their collage color scheme (not random)
• Show more than 3 layers of shading
• Achieve a “likeness” in their work.

 
About half of my students chose the classical approach (outlined here), but I was delighted that the other half chose to take on this new visual challenge. What do you think? 

​If you are interested in more lessons you can use in your classroom, you can access them all for free on my blog. I have also organized them into differentiated, k-12, choice-based plans you may copy for your students.  Book 1 is HERE, and book 2 is HERE.