Each year as an introduction to portraiture using a grid method, I have my Art I students enlarge and draw what appears to be a totally non-objective image. I give them a small square with the image on it, and they draw it onto a larger square.
They don't know what they're drawing until all of the squares are put together to form a picture!
Intro to this exercise involves doing value scales and also doing some preliminary drawings that simply involve copying various shapes.
This has worked so well in previous years that I decided to make it a bit more challenging during the fall of 2002. I gave them 1/2-inch squares this time (instead of inch squares), which resulted in 120 tiny little pieces of a 5x6-inch Photoshop-altered picture. Students drew on 2" squares of white paper.
All squares were coded, and when students had completed the 120 2-inch squares, they started gluing them onto a large sheet of paper. Here are the results:
Over 30 different students drew this portrait of Angelina Jolie.
It's the best way I've found to encourage kids who initially say "I can't draw"!
Fall 2002 Mystery Portrait
Fall 2004 Mystery Portrait
Fall 2006 Mystery Portrait
Fall 2008 Mystery Portrait
Fall 2010 Mystery Portrait
Fall 2012 Mystery Portrait
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