Faces of Art History

Paint famous faces to create an art historical timeline

Each student will choose a face from an historical artwork (must be by a somewhat recognized artist and researchable). The task will be to look through historical artworks to find an existing face that appeals to you, save the image, crop just the head of the subject and save in the student share. We will then project the image onto the painting surface and trace the features with pencil. We will print a color copy of the face and proceed to reproduce it with acrylic paint. This face will be isolated by a flat color as a background and the background will be color coordinated. These subjects could be picked from a painting by Toulouse Lautrec, Tamara de Lempicka, a sculptural face by Michelangelo, or singled out from an abstracted face by Picasso, etc.

These paintings will be hung as a collaborative art historical timeline, showing the evolution of styles through the ages. They will be unified by painting a common flat background with color coordination. Each student will get an equal sized rectangle. All the paintings will be oriented vertically so they may fit together uniformly. To be hung on the exterior of the art room.