East Detroit Public Schools
Lesson Design
Author: Nancy Rae DuVal
Subject: Art
Grade: 8th Grade - High School
Course: Dynamic Design (or a high school design class)
Title: Double Self Portrait
Length of Unit: Approximately ten days
Materials Needed:
Power Macintosh G3 computers
digital camera
laser printer
floppy disks
18” x 24” white drawing paper pencils
black ink pads with ink to refill
natural light source
live Internet connection
VCR
Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress (video by Home Vision Arts)
Optional: Chuck Close Up Close (book by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan)
Standards-Based Outcomes (MDE):
Arts Education:
I. Performing- Visual Arts
Content Standard I, 1: All students will apply skills and knowledge to perform in the arts.
24. Select materials, techniques, media technology, and processes to achieve desired effects.
II. Creating- Visual Arts
Content Standard II, 2: All students will apply skills and knowledge to create in the arts.
19. Apply materials, techniques, and processes with sufficient skill, confidence, and sensitivity that personal intentions are carried out in artworks.
20. Create artworks that use organizational principles and functions to solve specific visual arts problems.
III. Analyzing in Context- Visual Arts
Content Standard III, 3: All students will analyze, describe, and evaluate works of art.
24. Describe how materials, techniques, technology, and processes cause responses.
25. Reflect upon the characteristics and assess the merits of one’s personal artwork.
25. Reflect and analyze the personal experiences that influence the development of personal artwork.
IV. Arts in Context- Visual Arts
Content Standard IV, 4: All students will understand, analyze, and describe the arts in their historical, social, and cultural contexts.
This lesson also responds to the standards set by the National Art Education Association and the National Council for Teachers of the Arts by integrating art production with art history, culture, analysis, and aesthetics.
Prior Knowledge:
- Students should have a basic knowledge of facial proportions.
- Students should be familiar with the definition of the design element value.
Cue Set:
- How can we show students that people can and have overcome learning and physical disabilities?
- How can we instill excitement into studying the lives of artists?
- How can we show the connection between art production, history, and technology?
This assignment introduces students to an artist who overcame learning and physical disabilities and became a successful contemporary American artist. In addition, it exposes students to the use of a digital camera; challenges them to imitate the style of one artist; gives them a concrete understanding of the design element value; and shows a connection between the use of technology and art.
Best Shot Instruction:
- Students watch a video about the artist Chuck Close. After viewing the video, students take a quiz to assess their understanding.
- The instructor takes digital black and white photographs of each student, using a light source from one side of the face to create value changes. (If preferred, students could be instructed to take digital photos of each other.) The photos are saved onto a floppy disk and then sent to the computer lab to be printed on the laser printer for better quality prints.
- While looking at their own photographs, students first sketch the outlines of their heads, necks, and shoulders on 18” x 24" paper . Then they lightly sketch in the outlines of their facial features without doing any pencil shading. Next, using black ink pads and their fingers, students begin to build up value changes to create the illusion of volume across their faces. Students may use the sides and tips as well as their whole fingers to print.
- When their self portraits are complete, students search the websites and hyperlinks to view additional artworks.
Reteaching and Enrichment:
- Classroom discussion is a good way to help students reflect, rethink, and probe deeper into the core ideas. Discussion topics relating to this lesson could include:
1) learning and physical disabilities;
2) how others perceive us and we perceive ourselves;
3) perseverance;
4) overcoming obstacles.
- To reteach and check their understanding of the design element value, students can either individually or as a class write or discuss which are the light, medium, and dark values in well known works of art. These pieces are shown in posters, slides, CDs, or if there is a live Internet hook-up, on a virtual tour of a gallery.
- Self and peer assessment is encouraged with the showing of the finished portraits on the teacher’s website. A page should be set up for comments and feedback from viewers.
Review and Closure:
- The students’ finished portraits exhibit their understanding of value and how to create the illusion of volume on a two dimensional surface. Group critiques and a gallery showing in the hall outside the classroom encourage assessment and constructive feedback.
- Giving students grading sheets to score their own portraits is helpful for evaluating themselves.
Assessment:
- Students’ finished artworks demonstrate their understanding and ability to take a variety of values to create the illusion of volume in their self portraits.
- A quiz is designed to assess the students’ understanding of the artist, Chuck Close.