Modigliani is known for his portrait paintings with elongated, stretched faces and facial features, the almond shaped eyes. Which is why he's a great artist to study for a self-portrait lesson - gives the student a little wiggle room for fun, not striving for perfection.I provided each class with a variety of colored handouts of Modigliani's portraits: of girls, boys, women and men, wearing different colors for inspiration and education.
We started off by drawing our face with black oil pastel by looking into a hand-held mirror, paying attention to drawing it elongated like what they see in their handout. I then demonstrated how to draw "guidelines" to place your facial features proportionately. (You can still see some of the lines peeking through).
Students looked in their mirrors for the shape of their eyes, how close they are together, what shape their top lip is, then the bottom, etc. I finally demonstrated chalk pastel techniques: blending, texture, erasing, and how to keep your drawing fingerprint free!
I have a diverse group of students so they chose their skin color from the 3-4 tan/brown chalk pastels I had...and they went to town!
