Self Portraits

Even though we look at ourselves in the mirror every day, we don’t really see the details of our face. The practice of developing a self-portrait allows us to notice our uniqueness. 

It’s a step by step process, beginning with the study the contours of our face in sketch form. Where do the eyes appear in the shape of the head? How do we render the right size of the ears? Where does the nose go? What about the mouth?  Once completed, the children transferred these drawings to high-grade pastel paper (or with Sumi ink), where we worked them into convincing images with chalk pastel. These studies are more than art. They are, at the core, exercises in building strong self-image.