Thursday, April 29, 2010

6th grade - Self portraits and the Durer grid


Albrecht Durer was an artist during the Northern Renaissance. He came up with a grid system for accurately re-creating an image. His grid was built out of wood and wire so that he could stand it up between himself and the object he intended to draw. He then created a grid on his canvas to match the grid on the table.



Here is what his grid looked like...


In class, we are using the grid system to transfer a photo of ourselves onto the drawing paper. The image has a grid labelled with numbers and letters. The drawing paper has a matching grid. We are also drawing the image UPSIDE DOWN! This allows the brain to focus on the lines and shapes instead of on the fact that it is an image of a person.

The example below demonstrates with a line drawing of a bunny.

This project will take 1 1/2 to 2 weeks to complete!  Next, we paint it!

3 comments:

flyingfish said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
flyingfish said...

Sorry, it's 4:19 a.m. here in Beijing and I accidentally erased my last post. What I meant to say was, I am very glad to have stumbled across your blog. I've only read the one entry so far, but it is certainly clear and pleasing. And as I work with kids, I am always looking for new tools. Thank you!

Oh, and the photo header is gorgeous too!

Kate said...

Thank you for your kind words! The header photo was taken near my house last fall.