Color Theory Portrait

Color Theory

Now that your students have learned about the color wheel and have practiced shading with colored pencils, you can move on to doing a color theory portrait.  For the color theory portrait you will have your students decide on a color theme they wish to use for their painting.  Students will not only be implementing how to use color theory in their artwork, but will also learn how to create a grid portrait using an image taken of themselves.  

Materials for this assignment :

- 18 x 24 Paper, preferably thicker, better quality paper from Dick Blick 

- Rulers to measure out grid

- Mechanical pencils and erasers

- Acrylic Paint (white, blue, red, yellow)

- Paintbrushes (flat, wide, and small brushes for detail)

- plastic or metal palettes for paint

The first step for the assignment is to take portrait images of your students that can be printed and the grid can than be drawn on top.  The image can be on any standard copy paper that's 8 1/2 x 11.  Once the images are printed out the students will draw out a 1 inch grid, after they have finished their grid on their image they will than draw a 2 inch grid on their 18 x 24 paper.  Keep in mind that the students should lightly put in the grid because eventually they will need to erase it once they start painting.  

Once students have finished their larger grid on their big piece of paper they will move on to transferring the information from their portrait images.  

       

They will be drawing in the various shapes and details of their face, dividing up the various shades of value. They can also number the areas of different values, almost like a paint by numbers method.  Some students will find that this approach will work best for them. Students will choose what color scheme they would like : Monochromatic, Complementary, Tridaic, or Split Complement.  Once they have decided what color scheme they would like to do they can start their painting!  When I did my painting I did a monochromatic color scheme with blue.  I started with the blue straight from the container and that was my darkest value and worked up to lighter values as I went.  You can have your student start with a mid tone color first this may be easier for them.  Every student will have a different approach to how they do their painting and this is fine.  Once their start painting make sure they take their time painting and that their adding an even, opaque application of paint onto their paper.  

This is my process of my color grid portrait and my end result was fairly successful overall.  The end result your students should get is a nice color portrait that they can be proud of.