If they want to do portrait....

If they want to do portrait, let them! I remember when one of my daughters was about sixteen, she loved to draw faces even for her school art portfolio. Brook Shields and the celebrities of the day were drawn so well, really, really good!  As her art teacher I was ordered to discourage the "frivolous habit of drawing celebrities"! This was so ridiculous when we look back today. She is a  talented portrait artist and is invited to prestigious art shows.

One of my students last year wanted to do more portrait work. Her pencil work showed promise, so I made sure that she knew how to use various soft pencils and a lot of tonal variations. This coming year sepia pens, oil and watercolours will be added to her materials and I plan lots of challenges.



A live portrait of a young girl done by a 13yr old . Early beginnings!

And now at 14, there is so much growth!
The model is instantly recognised!

It is great when family members are willing to pose!
Wonderful texture in the hair!

Practicing the freedom of charcoal on blank newspaper

A wonderful selection of portraits by the same student, sometimes doing family members live, and sometimes using a cell phone to find suitable faces and poses. Providing small notebooks means that students can draw on weekends and everywhere they go.

 

The children in my class are so diverse. " I really like cartoon style portraits", said another girl. Like the rest of the class she does exercises in realism, but she also gets the opportunity to go into the fantasy realm. More about that in the next post!