Chuck Close is one of my favourite artists and my kids find his painting fascinating too so when I saw this on Pinterest I was struck by what a simple and effective idea it is. A lot of Close’s portraits are made up of small squares and swirls that up close seem to be abstract, but from a difference are a perfect representation of a face – they really are quite striking.
This simple grid method can help children create their own masterpieces. Get them started by finding a photograph of their faces and drawing a grid over the top. Then get them to draw round the face with a black pen, picking out the features – eyes, mouth, hair etc.
Get a new piece of paper and create a grid of the same size, then have them transpose the main details of the face to the new grid.
Once they have this, they can go mad! Have them fill in each square with patterns, swirls, blocks of colour – whatever they want. They can use the correct colours or crazy colours, it’s totally up to them.
Here are a few Chuck Close works for reference and inspiration!
