Pop-star portraits by Rankin ‘destroyed’ (+ lesson idea)

27 10 2009

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Check out Rankin (photographer, publisher and film director who launched Dazed & Confused magazine) and the Destroy Rankin Project. It’s…

“To celebrate Youth Music’s 10th Birthday, 70 of the world’s greatest musicians and visual artists have created a groundbreaking body of collaborative artwork based on Rankin’s iconic portraits of musicians.

As part of National Youth Music Week 2009, Youth Music will take over Phillips De Pury London for a festival of art and live music featuring performances from Destroy artists.

Original works by Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon, Debbie Harry, Michael Stipe, U2, Mat Collishaw, Marianne Faithfull and many others will be auctioned to support the UK’s biggest music charity for young people.”

rankinDESTROYED_10323_RGB_FINALView the Gallery to see the original Rankin photo and how it was ‘destroyed’ by another artist. I think students would enjoy a project like this by using celebrity photos from magazines or even taking and using photos of themselves, which a partner could then reinterpret. I may consider this when I do portrait painting with grade 6 students next semester.

This whole Rankin approach sounds similar to a portrait party.

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Categories : Art & Design, Creative Arts, Creativity, Lesson Plans

Grade 6 Self Portraits

28 09 2009


My first round of grade 6 students (11 years old) have just completed their self-portraits unit. Feel free to view the simple five week unit here. To introduce the unit, blind portrait drawings were done, which I blogged about before here. Students then used mirrors to draw their portraits without instruction (70 minutes). These pre-assessment drawings are included in the video, followed by their final piece. Some students made remarkable improvements.

I tried a different approach that was inspired from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Photos were taken and cross hairs applied. Students then drew these cross hairs onto their A3 sheets and a middle tone was then added over their paper. 2B~6B pencils were used to add further value and tone, and erasers for highlighted areas. If you teach portrait drawing, I have other ideas and resources on my wiki as well. I may consider a portrait party for a future group. Enjoy!

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Categories : Art & Design, Student Work