Fractured Portrait

Drawing self portraits is a tough task for middle school students. They are in an age group inherently self critical and exaggeratingly aware of physical differences and flaws. During my years of teaching middle school students, drawing self-portraits has been one of the most difficult lessons to teach. Then I started teaching a lesson I call “Fractured Portraits”. This lesson allows the student to create a portrait or self portrait using digital images and photo editing software to create a face collage. To get started, students take photos of each other or of themselves. The images are downloaded onto the art room computers where they can begin to create their own original portrait from at least three different photographic images. Some students create a specific emotion; some blend actual images of themselves to create a stylized self-portrait. Some work diligently to blend and smooth transitions to create a clean seamless image while others revel in the cubist style of rough edges and misaligned features.
Students learn how to upload, edit and manipulate images. Due to storage issues, all digital artwork is stored on USB flash drives. For display student can create their own class slideshow, or movie adding music and fun transistions. They may also print the final portrait on good quality photo paper and frame with matboard.

Fractured Portraits…just one more example of how technology more effectively supports student achievements in the fine arts.