Just as teachers provide experiences to empower students through written and spoken language, so teachers should provide students with experiences to help them interpret visual information and express themselves using the language of visual art. Students should be encouraged to observe details in their surroundings, to explore the relationships between objects and their environment, and to search for meaning in visual images. This mini-unit is based on the idea that students and artists can get ideas from things they see around them.
Citations appear in full in the bibliography, alphabetized by title.
Magazines, art work, media, etc. Make a portrait of a friend using these principles as guidelines. Art books with information on proportion and scale Look at how artists have changed the proportions to achieve different expressive qualities. Have students use the previous portrait as a starting point, and then exaggerate and distort it to achieve an expressive quality. This could be done by drawing or sculpting larger hands, feet, eyes, etc., or eliminating some segments altogether.