High School Studio Lesson
SELf-PORTRAIT
AVAtA R S
Brian Hutcheson
The world of fine arts can
seem a bit intimidating to a
student, and it is part of the
teacher’s role to help ease
students into that world. One of my
goals as an art and design educator is
to bring the world of my students into
classroom projects, providing a sense
of comfort and familiarity in the context of learning something new. My
inspiration for this project grew from
that goal, as I tried to connect the traditional subject matter of portraiture
with the current trends of students,
inhabiting the digital realm in the
form of digital avatars.
The final project for my students
bridged the gap between the traditional and contemporary as they were
asked to create a self-portrait using
paint as their medium in a pixilated,
8-bit video game style. More inspiration for the format of their project
came from the artist Chuck Close and
his grid painting technique, the video
game character Mario, and a magnificent video by the White Stripes created out of animated Legos. Within
the task of creating a self-portrait,
students had the freedom to break free
from direct representation, yet they
needed to retain a human-like form.
Exploring the Self-Portrait
Our project was guided by two essential questions:
• Why do people—artists in particu-
lar—create pictures of themselves?
• What does a self-portrait tell us
about that person?
We talked
about the tradition of self-portraiture and
looked at the
work of artists
such as Vincent
van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and Andy
Warhol for visual reference and inspiration. We also discussed how self-portraiture is becoming widespread
in the digital realm as people create
avatars to take part in that world.
Our examples included the video
game Halo, the virtual reality world
Second Life, and social websites like
WeeWorld.com.
Starting Out Small
I should note that this project was
part of an introductory visual arts
course and as part of the project,
we covered basic color theory and
human proportions to introduce
students who previously didn’t have
that knowl-
Self-portraiture is becoming edge, and to
widespread in the digital realm reinforce stu-
dents who had
as people create avatars to take more in-depth
part in that world. visual art back-
grounds.
Students began their self-portrait
avatars on a small, narrow piece of
graph paper, where they created a
rough draft version of their avatar
using color pencils. This provided a
safe starting point where students
could practice their ideas on a small
scale and were able to quickly try
multiple solutions. This also intro-
duced students to the idea of having
limited pixels to create their self-
portraits. Students quickly realized that though their final painting
would be larger than the rough drafts,
they would still be limited in how
they could represent themselves in
this 8-bit video game style.
Enlarging the Grid
Once students had completed their
rough drafts, they were given a large
6 x 18" ( 15 x 46 cm) piece of heavy
paper, suitable to be painted on with
acrylic or tempera paint. Students
had to create their own ¼" grid
on the large piece of paper, which
proved somewhat difficult for many
students. A key to helping students
create straight lines for their grid
