As I go through my archive of teaching samples, I found this drawing from back in the mid 1990s. I shared it with my Facebook Group and it seemed to garner a lot of attention so I decided to share it here as well.
I have found that some students are overwhelmed by doing a whole self-portrait, but doing a partial image seems less daunting. I had some CDs laying around and I thought they had an interesting prismatic mirrored surface. I had students trace the CD onto paper then draw their hand as if it was holding it. They needed to work from observation so they held it with their non-dominant hand. Tracing the CD helped eliminate the problem of scale. So often students want to work tiny.
For this exploration we focused on pen and ink with a bit of crosshatching for shadows. It can really be done in any media and any size. I am sure it would have been just as fun to make larger circles as well. It was not until the hand and CD were complete that I told them they needed to include a portion of their face. They could choose to hold the CD at arm's length to see more, or to hold it much closer and just include an eye and partial nose. They could squint, make a funny face, grin, or fake an angry look. When those were complete we added the prismatic rainbows which, I think, gave it a nice pop of color. (The top image had subtle color and the bottom image just has the prismatic flairs.)
If a CD was unavailable I could imagine using a spoon, or other reflective surface would be fine. The Escher Sphere is a bit played-out for my taste, but it works great, and to many students, it's a new experience for them. This could even be part of a homework assignment, to bring in a reflective object that fits in your hand, even better if the object itself had some personal significance.
Unfortunately, I do not have any student images of this golden-oldie, but I may just revisit it soon. I do however have these two samples, and many other projects to share with you in upcoming blog posts!
I have found that some students are overwhelmed by doing a whole self-portrait, but doing a partial image seems less daunting. I had some CDs laying around and I thought they had an interesting prismatic mirrored surface. I had students trace the CD onto paper then draw their hand as if it was holding it. They needed to work from observation so they held it with their non-dominant hand. Tracing the CD helped eliminate the problem of scale. So often students want to work tiny.
For this exploration we focused on pen and ink with a bit of crosshatching for shadows. It can really be done in any media and any size. I am sure it would have been just as fun to make larger circles as well. It was not until the hand and CD were complete that I told them they needed to include a portion of their face. They could choose to hold the CD at arm's length to see more, or to hold it much closer and just include an eye and partial nose. They could squint, make a funny face, grin, or fake an angry look. When those were complete we added the prismatic rainbows which, I think, gave it a nice pop of color. (The top image had subtle color and the bottom image just has the prismatic flairs.)
If a CD was unavailable I could imagine using a spoon, or other reflective surface would be fine. The Escher Sphere is a bit played-out for my taste, but it works great, and to many students, it's a new experience for them. This could even be part of a homework assignment, to bring in a reflective object that fits in your hand, even better if the object itself had some personal significance.
Unfortunately, I do not have any student images of this golden-oldie, but I may just revisit it soon. I do however have these two samples, and many other projects to share with you in upcoming blog posts!
If you wish to join my Facebook Group, please be sure to answer the 3 entry questions to get in. It helps weed out trolls and spammers. It is just for art educators though. For more of my resources for art teachers, visit Firehouse Publications.
RSS Feed