Middle, High School Art Intro to Realistic Portraits & Drawing with the Grid

Teaching realistic portrait drawing can be intimidating for teachers and students alike, but it's an important part of a middle or high school visual art class. Use this lesson pack to give you all the resources you need to show students how to grid, get correct proportions, and capture a person through a portrait drawing.

Every year I teach my Introduction to Art students how to use the grid method as a drawing tool. It helps give my students who are weaker in their drawing skills a tool to learn how to break images down into lines and shapes to more successfully draw them. The subject of the artwork is their hero. This could be a family member, celebrity, or philanthropist, and it provides the personal connection needed for buy-in for the project.

This grid drawing project includes:

➢Lesson plan with a big idea, objectives, national standards, supply list, vocabulary, step-by-step teachers instructions, and more.

➢PowerPoint presentation to introduce the artist exemplar and the grid method

➢Chuck Close artist research sheet

➢Grid drawing method instructions

➢Demo video on setting up a grid drawing

➢Viewfinder printout

➢Facial proportions how to

➢Eye measurement how to

➢Critique

➢Rubric

Interested in more grid-focused warm-up activities and projects? Check out my grid method bundle which includes this lesson here.

This lesson plan is also included in my yearlong Introduction to Art bundle. With this pack, you don't have to plan a single day of the school year in your Intro to Art class. Check it out here.

Check out my other products here.