Portraits in Family

What does a say about the wearer?

Could your family be represented by drawing their shoes?

What arrangement of shoes would best depict your family?

Journal Exercise: Listing Exercise

In your journal you will create several lists to help you start this project. On the top of the page and going across it list your family members. These will serve as column headings. If your family does not easily fit across the page turn so you can make your list in landscape mode. Under each person list their shoes. Underneath, I have started a list for my family. Start your list with shoes you see the person wearing the most, or that you think are particular favorites of the family member who wears them. You need not list every pair of shoes that family member owns (especially if the person owns 50 pairs of shoes), but try to list all of the shoes they wear often. You may then want to circle shoes you think are particularly emblematic for each family member. Shoes that really show their personality or role in the family.

Mom Dad Heather Meghan Meredith Erin Tracy Cashell Allison

Black Beat up Taryn Gold Red Patent Dockers Gowalks lawn Black Platform Kitty Heels mowing Korks Brown tennis Sandals Boat shoes Shoes Blue Clarks Ryka lime Black mules Brown green and wedge Platform Tan Suede Loafers grey loafer Flip Flops flip-flop sandals Coral on Royal blue Black Doc leather flip black Cole Surgery suede platform Martins flops with Haan ballet flats flip-flops cut out Loafer with pink flowers Teva Black embroidered sandals flowers and border

White Cordovan Brown Red Nude leather flip lace up Clarks gladiator leather peep flop with dress Sandals sandals toe tall gold shoes with short wedge connecting wedge sandals ring Teal Crocs Brown woven fiber flip flop Super-tall wedge leather bootie mules

Thumbnails:

Explore Layout options by doing small drawings of possible compositions. This is called “Thumbnailing”. Sometimes – if the little drawing is a quite detailed the drawing might be called a “rough” or rough draft.

Thumbnails should explore a variety of layouts with which to depict the relationships in your family and personality family members using shoes. You may want to review the many photos and paintings of family shoes found in this handout for ideas. Thumbnails should always be sufficiently detailed to get a clear idea of the layout and look of the final drawing. The thumbnails on the top left are all done to plan a still life painting of one bowl of onions. You should do at least 4 sketches to develop your own ideas for your family portrait using shoes. You may want to arrange shoes and draw them in a variety of ways for your layout sketches. Decide if shoes will be by themselves or on the members of your family. Do not draw from memory. Draw looking at the objects or from photos you take. Always place the containing rectangle that depicts the edge of the paper or canvas around your thumbnail or rough- otherwise your layout will not be clear. The edge rectangle can be placed in from the beginning as in the example sketchbook pages above or placed in a sketch after as in the example to the left.

Family Shoe Portrait:

Choose your most exciting composition from your thumbnails and create your own “Portrait in Shoes” for your family. Before completing your final you may wish to read the following article about drawing correctly from observation: http://www.studentartguide.com/articles/realistic- observational-drawings).

Choose what you consider your strongest medium (drawing or painting material) and create your portrait. Portraits should be at least 11” x 14”. No outline drawings. The shoes need to be shaded in color or black and white.

This is work for a Pre-AP class. All work should demonstrate the idea that you are an advanced student! These are appropriate examples.