Self Portrait a la Chuck Close—I've enjoyed some of the art of Chuck Close over the years. He uses the technique of drawing a grid over a photograph; drawing a grid on the drawing surface, usually at a different, larger scale; transferring the image from the photo to the drawing surface using the squares as reference. It's similar to the technique described by Leon Battista Alberti in his book Della Pittura (Of Painting) on the laws of perspective in 1435. In the book Alberti describes a frame of grids through which the artist views and transfers a scene. Alberti's Frame was the name of the most successful of the drawing devices invented during the fifteenth century.

I took a few digital self portrait photos. I selected the one I thought was best and read it into GIMP. GIMP provides a function for displaying a grid over an image, with spacing and color of the grid selectable by the user. I created a rather large grid, probably covering 1/2 square inch on the face. I then created a grid on a large piece of 18 x 24 inch paper and drew a grid of the same number of rows and columns. I've spent about 4 hours drawing the image, which looks surprisingly lifelike. Is this cheating? Everything was drawn freehand, which should count for something. It's a technique used by many artists, but yes, it does feel a little like “cheating” If I every finish the drawing and decide to display it, perhaps I'll leave the grid visible: yes I cheated, and here's how.
posted by Bruce Wright at 3:26 PM #