Heartfelt/Handmade Activities: Portrait Painting

Purpose: To help the students understand how the self-trained artist painted portraits for

clients in the nineteenth century.

Illinois State museum Web site used:

https://www.museum.state.il.us/vrmuseum/muslink/art/htmls/hh.html

Objectives: After viewing the portraits in the 19th Century

Folk Art Gallery, and studying middle

class life in nineteenth-century Illinois, the students will

interview a client (role playing) about the type of portrait

he or she wanted to order and then create a simple indi-

vidual portrait of a client or a miniature portrait.

Grade Levels: 3-8

Time Required: two 50-minute periods

Materials: sketch paper

pencil

brushes

paints

water bowls

palettes

mats and frames

Motivation:

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Discuss in class the portraits in the online unit and other nineteenth-century portraits.

*

Talk about the composition, the details, the backgrounds. Are they realistic, grand,

classical, simple? Why? How? Where were the portraits hung? What purposes did they

serve? Did people want their favorite objects in their portraits? Did they wear special clothes

for the painting?

*

Discuss or demonstrate how an artist would interview a prospective client, and how

a client would interview a prospective artist. What things must be made clear before

work begins? [What kind of portrait it is, who (and how much of each person) is in

the painting, how they should be dressed, what objects are included, where the peo-ple

are set (indoors, outdoors), what type of background they want or is possible for

the painter to do (e.g., idealized landscape, drapery, solid color wall)].

*

Instruct each artist and interviewer (taking turns) to come to a price and conditions

for the painting. Are room and board included if the artist is to stay in the home? How long

must the subject sit and how many times? Will the artists sketch, then go to his/her studio to

paint? Does the price include the cost of materials? A written record or receipt could be a

contract.

Heartfelt/Handmade Activity: Portrait Painting,

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