Teaching Portraiture in 7th Grade: Portrait Slide Show

This is a slide show I prepared for my 7th grade students based on their requests to learn to do accurate portraits. I started with some self portraits by artists who were in their teens, including three of Rembrant, two when he was young, and one when he was old. I included the drawings by John Singer Sargent, because he is a famous portrait painter and some of the drawings have mistakes. The students had expressed a desire to learn to do features, so some of the drawings are of specific features and some of the slides focus on emotion. They claimed that the last Picasso portrait taught them nothing, but really I put it in to shock them.

This is the Understanding by Design format that I used to create the curriculum for this project.
Stage 1: Desired Results

Established Goals:
1. Learn how to use shading to make something look dimensional.
2. Learn to draw a head with accurate features and proportions.
2. Learn a little about the history of portrait drawing.

Understandings:
Students will understand that:
1. they are working in a continuation of the European tradition of portrait drawing.
2. shading can be used to make things look “real”
3. accurate proportions will make faces look “real”

Essential Questions
1. How can we make a three dimensional image on a two dimensional paper?
2. Do artists create what people perceive as beautiful in a face or does society create the expectation for beauty and then artists follow?
3. Does one have to be taught accurate human proportions or can it be self-taught?

Stage 2: Assessment Evidence

Performance tasks
1. Learn to draw a face that looks human using shading and correct proportions.
2. Draw an accurate self portrait.
Other Evidence
1. Students focus on their work without signs of frustration.
2. Students can help others if asked.
3. Students can explain what they are doing.

Stage 3: Learning Plan
Learning Activities
1. Slide show of portraits.
2. Introduction to proportions and shading to create a face on paper.
4. Take turns drawing each other.
5. Self portrait from a photograph that has been turned into a gray scale using Photoshop and using a grid on the paper and photograph.