Artists draw on new skills

With a pencil and paper, a mirror, and patience, Grade 7 art students tackled new techniques to illustrate a pop culture figure and complete a self-portrait. 

Students show their pop culture figure portraits

“Middle School represents an increased amount of rigor in all studies. In art, we begin rigorous drawing studies by observing the world around us,” said Visual Art Teacher Sean Nolan. “Learning step-by-step allows us to create an equation, and the end result is an accurate representation of ourselves in drawing form.” 

Nolan invited the boys to notice the similarities among one another and the universal pattern to how human faces are structured. “Our mouths are as wide as our eyes.” Nolan explained. “The tops of our ears are about as high as our eyebrows, and the bottoms of our ears are about as low as the bottom of our nose, etc.” 

“We started out drawing each part of the face as its own assignment, and then as we developed those, we put it all together in this portrait,” said Matthew B. ’30. 

Grade 7 students work on their portraits in class
Students show their pop culture figure portraits

Students took pictures of themselves and used digital tools to draw lines to confirm their observations about the patterns in their faces. 

Josh Z. measures the proportions of his face digitally

“It became a lot easier when we marked it up because you knew exactly where to draw the features and how big to draw them. That was very helpful,” Brooks H. ’30 said.  

Students also created a slide show detailing the steps they followed for their rough draft and their final draft. 

Grade 7 students work on their portraits in class

“Having to create the slideshow was really helpful because it helped me identify how I could improve upon my rough draft,” said Brooks.  

Grade 7 students work on their portraits in class

As students build their artistic techniques, Nolan said the project is also about the empathy that comes with their observations. 

“The drawing skills develop more and more as students get older and begin to build their fine motor skills, but the way they see the world is something that, in my opinion, is far more important,” Nolan added. “Seeing the similarities in one another helps us form physiological common ground. It then helps us to appreciate the differences, the small changes that make us all unique individuals.”

Students show their pop culture figure portraits

 

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