Kehinde Wiley Portraits- Criteria & Objectives• Students will make a portrait in the style of Kehinde Wiley using

graphite and a tessellated background.• Students will use a high resolution (800 x 1000 px. 150 dpi.) photo

of themselves facing forward in black in white, a one inch acetate grid, a ruler, graphite pencil, eraser Kleenex, blending stump, scissors, glue, and construction paper.

• Students will make a tessellated background using a basic double slide square tessellation. Students may opt for a more complex rotation, split slides, or other shapes for their tessellations.

• Students will use a one inch grid on their reference, and a one and a half inch grid on their artwork

• Students will use the grid to make as naturalistic/realistic representation of your self. Students must use a full range of value, a blending stump, eraser, and any other method to create this representation short of tracing.

• The objective is to naturalistically represent the human face with the assistance of a grid.

Kehinde Wiley• Born in 1977 (he's in his thirties)

Lives in New York city• His work has been exhibited

internationally and is a part of major collections in museums across the U.S.

• The themes of his paintings stretch from reinterpretations of master's work to simply depicting African American men in positions of power, namely that of French aristocracy, renaissance masters, or other neoclassical masters

• Works primarily with Oil paint and gold leaf on paper and canvas, his works range in size from the small to the HUGE

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne (1806)

Theodore Géricault- The Officer of the Hussars, oil on canvas, circa 1812, 37 in × 105 in, Louvre, Paris

Tessellations• Tessellation is the process of creating a

two dimensional plane using the repetition of a geometric shape with no overlaps and no gaps.

• For your tessellation you can use three colors, you must use at least two

• You must start with a 2 x 2 in. square.• How you orient your tessellations should

be along a regular interval in a grid.• How the grid is oriented is up to you.

M. C. Escher Tessellations

1. Cut out a 2 in. x 2 in. or a 3 in. x 3in. square from a sheet of notebook paper or scrap paper

2. Draw a design starting in corner A and ending in corner B. The line has to go from corner to corner.

3. Cut it out, slide it tothe other side ofthe square and tape it along that edge.

4. You can do this again on the top edge with the available space.

1. Trace your tessellation tile on a piece of construction paper2. Cut out your tiles3. Paste them on another color of construction paper, stagger them in a

alternating pattern that interlocks4. Make sure you bring your pattern all the way to the edge and cut off

the extra. Fill the entire background with tiles.

1.

2.

3.

4.

To perform a more complicated tessellation you can split the design halfway. Slide from any portion of the square. And when you glue down your tiles glue them on a diagonal grid.

1.

2. 3.

My Example, close but not a complete likeness

Turn on ZoomItCtrl+2= drawShift+click for line

Student Examples

Photo referenceAcetate grid, dry erase markers can outline features

First attempt, the student did not refer to the grid

Second attempt after acknowledging the grid