LESSON PLAN: Out of Proportion By Amy Wunsch, November 2008

Transcription

1 LESSON PLAN: Out of Proportion By Amy Wunsch, November 2008 Learn about proportion and scale in art and create a distorted self-portrait drawing. Key Idea: Proportion is a principle of design involving size relationships and scale. Contemporary artists use proportion to make life-like, natural, exaggerated, or unnatural effects in their artworks. When creating a self-portrait, artists may use changes in proportion to represent a visual likeness (showing their outward appearance) or a symbolic likeness of their inner attributes. Objectives: 1. Students will be introduced to Proportion as a principle of design through a brief discussion with the instructor. Students will also discuss reasons for creating self-portraits: easy access to an ever-present model, self-expression and self-exploration, etc. What is a likeness? How do we represent ideas or personal attributes that are NOT visible? How could you create a self-portrait without drawing your face? How would a self-portrait you drew be different from one taken by a camera? Students will list objects that tell about their favorite activities and other personal attributes and record them on the back of their review sheet. Students will discuss ways inward characteristics (loving, friendly, kind, spiritual, etc.) could be expressed visually in a drawing. 2. Students will go on an instructor-led tour of the Nerman Museum, focusing on artists who incorporate proportion in their works featuring people and animals. 3. Students will use graphite pencil, colored pencils, and soft pencil pastels to create a self-portrait that reflects their outward characteristics as well as inward attributes. They will use mirrors to guide them in their initial contour drawing of facial features, then with color choices, etc. The instructor will lead the students initially in creating the natural placement of features on the head (eyes are 1/2-way down from the top of the head and they are separated by one eye-width). Students will use a caricature format to represent their bodies in smaller proportion, accompanied by objects that reveal more about their hobbies, cultural or ethnic identities, favorite things, etc. Their heads might include exaggerated features according to their personalities: larger eyes for someone who is a good visual artist or observer; large ears for those who are good listeners; larger mouth for those who sing or like to talk to others, etc. Vocabulary: caricature: a representation in which the subject's features are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect contour drawing: the edge or line that defines a shape or object proportion: design principle that addresses size relationships and scale Materials: Newsprint paper for sketching

2 14 x 17 drawing paper, one sheet for each student Graphite drawing pencils (2B, 4B, HB) Colored pencils Soft pastel pencils Erasers Hand-held pencil sharpeners Student safety mirrors Mats to frame finished self-portraits Assessment: Students will trade completed self-portraits. After careful observation of their classmate s self-portrait, the students will state what the classmate was trying to show or express in his or her self-portrait: personality, inward qualities, outward characteristics, hobbies, dislikes or likes, etc. The other student will repeat this process with his or her partner s artwork. Was the intended meaning(s) clearly expressed by the methods each artist used? What might have been done differently to help the viewers clearly see the meaning the student artists wanted to show? Tour artwork images:

3 Till Freiwald (German, b. 1963) Untitled, 2004 Watercolor on paper Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art,

4 Do-Ho Suh (Korean, b. 1962) Some/One, 2004 Stainless steel military dog tags, steel structure, fiberglass resin, fabric Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation in honor of their children

5 Brad Kahlhamer (American, b. 1956) Eaglefest USA, 2005 Oil on canvas Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation

6 Louise Bourgeois (American, b. France, 1911-d. 2010) Woman with Packages, 1949 (cast 1996) Bronze Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Jules and Doris Stein Foundation

7 Stephan Balkenhol (German, b. 1957) Man Lying on Platform, 1998 Cedar wood and paint Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation

8 Thomas Trosch (American, b. 1955) Japanese Lesson # 24, Dorothy Rodger s Decorating Lesson #4, 1993 Oil and graphite on canvas Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art,

9 Dana Schutz (American, b. 1976) Surgery, 2004 Oil on canvas Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation

10 Marcus Cain (American, b. 1970) Soft Bones, 2009 Acrylic, colored pencil, graphite, ink, latex and watercolor on panel Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of Marti and Tony Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer Brothers Foundation