Visual Arts Planning: Portraits

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Explore our collection of Cardboard and Paper resources.

The following resources on portraits and self-portraits provide an exciting opportunity for students to consider what sort of visual statements they can present about themselves.

These fun and inspiring projects cover a range of processes that aim to challenge preconceived ideas of what a portrait can be and to encourage learners to develop their creative skills through experimentation with a wide variety of media. 

Tell us what you are planning to cover or explore this term in your school or institution and we’ll recommend resources or learning approaches which we think might feed your teaching.

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Using multiple cardboard pieces to create a gargoyle

Drawing Portraiture

Finger Palette Portraits

Using fingers and hands to paint portraits

Using marks made by fingers and hands to approach portraiture, experimenting with pressure and sensitivity to mark making.

Drawing Cartoon characters

Drawing cartoon characters

A school full of characters! In this workshop we explored capturing facial expressions through cartoon sketches.

MAKING PHYSICAL OR DIGITAL LAYERED PORTRAITS BY MIKE BARRETT

Drawing cartoon characters

Artist Mike shares with us what inspires him, and how we can make our own, individual work, either digitally or physically.

Drawing faces

Portrait studies

Using chalk and compressed charcoal and working quickly and rhythmically to create a pile of portrait studies.

Drawing portraits: A class celebration!

Portrait studies

In this session, a group of teenagers explored drawing portraits of each other in pastel, on a large-scale.

Introduction to Portraits

Introduction to portraits

Painter Hester Berry introduces some basic portrait drawing and painting concepts to primary-aged children and their teachers.

Look up, Not down

Portrait drawing exercises

Students draw each other keeping their eyes on their partner and not looking at their drawing.

Portraits inspired by henri matisse

Drawing inspired by Matisse

A resource that seeks to break down barriers of pre-conceived ideas of what a drawing should be.

Inspired by 18th Century portraits

Drawing inspired by 18th century portraits

Looking at drawing as a means to looking, and as a means to capturing representational interpretations of paintings.

Spotting potential and nurturing talent

Spotting potential in art students

How do we react when a child responds to a task in a very different way to their peers?

Portrait Club

Inspiring portrait drawing in practice

In this resource Jake Spice, demonstrates how portraiture can be brought into the classroom setting in a light-hearted and flexible way.

Printmaking and Sculpture

drypoint etching

Etching self portraits

Artist Maureen Crosby shares a simple and accessible printing process to enable children to make small, etched self-portraits.

Exploring Portraits

Self portrait using clay

Artist Eleanor Somerset shows how to use mixed media and collaged drawings to inspire a relief self-portrait in clay, as well as a lino print.

Plinth People: Sculptural self portraits

How to make sculptural self portraits

Starting off with a balanced object that can be manipulate and added to - enabling the process of creating dynamic figures that can stand independently.

Egg Box Gargoyles

Introduction to portraits

Illustrator Laura McKendry shows how to make inventive gargoyles using discarded egg boxes.

Painting

Watercolour portrait

Watercolour portrait

Read an interview with a young artist, aged 12, who worked to build a watercolour painting of her friend.

Backpainted Portraits

How to create portraits using an effective back painted technique. A great activity to explore less traditional portraiture methods.

How to create portraits using an effective back painted technique. A great activity to explore less traditional portraiture methods.

Self-Portrait in Acrylic

Self portrait using acrylic paint

This post shares the process of 11 year old girl as she paints an acrylic self-portrait for a school project inspired by Renaissance art.

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