Project VII Extra: Gridded Selfies



Chuck Close at work in his Hampton Studio, NY
MOSAIC GRIDDED PORTRAITS
PROCESS:
PART ONE
  1. Bring a portrait photo into Photoshop - chest upward
  2. Overlay a grid  For knitting, determine size of grid first as it will affect the size of the finished piece. 
  3. Pixelate the photo to line up with the grid   – Filter - Mosaic. 
  4. You can play with the cell size to get the boxes to line up with the grid.


PART TWO
From here you have a pattern, but it's still a bit color confusing and needs to be color blocked. 

You can color block right in Photoshop. 
Make use the eyedropper tool to select a color and then the brush tool (square) to paint in the grid using the photo as a starting point, blocking out chunks of color. 
Print this simplified pattern and work from it. NOTE: Large enough to work with.
This, for example, was a better solution for some of the student examples lower, as some of them were  so complicated that it was easier to paint over with fewer colors.

You can also print the pixelated photo and use a thin marker to block out similar sections by hand on paper or in a plastic paper sleeve.
This process makes the portraits more colorful because there are diverse sections that can be differentiated by color as you paint.

PART THREE
As for choosing colors, sometimes there are obvious choices that match the photo perfect, other times making use of exaggerated color can really make an interesting overall painted palette. new ones. 
If there is a section that is pretty saturated and/or muddy, pick out one color that will work well with the overall painting palette 'family.'
Pointillism painting example, colors optically blend on canvas
thereby creating additional colors


 

This project includes the Chuck Close A Portrait in Progress DVD


Inspirations:
Chuck Close
Georg Seurat
Pointilism
shell art
Grids
others...


STUDENT WORK


acrylic on Bristol - student work



acrylic on Bristol - student work

Photoshop: Mosaic gridded portraits
as preliminary sketch


acrylic on Bristol - student work


acrylic on Bristol - student work

Photoshop: Mosaic gridded portraits
as preliminary sketch



Photoshop: Mosaic gridded portraits
as preliminary sketch


Photoshop: Mosaic gridded portraits

as preliminary sketch



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