An afternoon with my kids inspired me to design this shirt.
You can win one! All you have to do is:
Follow THIS LINK to Threadless.com. Log in with your facebook account. Give the design a 5. Leave a comment at the bottom of the Threadless page. When the shirt is made, your comment will enter you in a drawing to win the shirt!
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a rising art star when Andy Warhol took this picture of him (above). Andy Warhol, on the other hand, was a bona fide celebrity. Jean-Michel was so starstruck that he fled the scene, went home, and painted this portrait of the two of them (below). He gave the painting, Dos Cabezas, to Warhol and, thanks to this impromptu portrait party a fast friendship was born.
The Portrait Party is featured this month in the April 2011 issue of SchoolArts Magazine!
If this is your first time visiting this site, I'm sad to say that it's not as happening as it used to be. The best online portrait parties can now be found at Julia Kay's Flickr page (for the general public) and at Art Ed 2.0 (for art teachers only). Of course, the very best portrait parties will happen at your school, in your living room, and wherever you have a chance to draw with a friend.
Kristine Johncox set up this portrait party bulletin board for her elementary students to share their portraits. She wanted to start an interactive display where kids could complete enjoy portrait parties with family, friends, or classmates either in or out of school.
way back when i started this blog, i invited everyone i knew to start a portrait party of their own. i'm happy to say that julia kay took it so far as to start her own online portrait party over on flickr. for those of you who miss the heyday of this blog (when i had more time to manage it), hop over to her party and see what she's up to. the artwork is gorgeous.
every time i complete one of these student portrait parties, a new wave of them crashes down like a tidal wave. drawing one student (always belatedly) reminds a dozen more that they want to trade portraits also. i'm not complaining! it's a fun problem to have. you'll have to believe me that the swaps here represent the tippity tippiest tip of the iceberg. at the end of the year, i'll post a photo of the whole kaboodle. so, you can see the sea of drawings through which i've been swimming.
here is a truly gorgeous swap between n.c. mallory (portrayed above) and marty harris (portrayed below).
Before I colored his portrait, my drawing partner in this portrait party asked if he could go over all my purple lines in black. "It's yours when I'm done with it," I answered, "But what have you got against purple?" Happily, he changed his mind when all the other colors came together.
"You made me look like a grown up."
"You made me look like a rubber action figure."
I'd buy that action figure by the way.
(Attention teachers: If you are interested in hosting a portrait party at your school, check out the Portrait Party 2.0 that we started on Art Ed 2.0. There are lesson guides, student examples, and lots of other teachers excited to collaborate with you.)
Melissa Woodland and David Gran organized a portrait party for their students through Art Education 2.0. Melissa's Art 1 Students were paired up with David's art students from a high school in China. Students swapped photos electronically and drew each other. You can see more of the portraits on flickr and artsonia.
Kendra Farrell held an "in house" portrait party to get her art 1 class warmed up for taking risks and having fun. They did!! You can see the rest of the portraits on flickr.
this year, i added a special offer to my annual art room portrait party. if a student draws me in color, i will draw them in color.
For as long as I have been teaching, I have made this offer to my students: If you draw me (outside of class), I will draw you. At the moment, I owe portraits to about twenty kids but that just means that there is always something fun to do at lunch time.
i know it's been a long time between posts but the portrait party is alive and well offline. in addition to the ongoing portrait exchanges that my students and i have made all year, the parties have been a great classroom game for teaching everything from shading and watercolors to sighting techniques and gesture drawing. in this example, my cartooning students at Art Center for Kids used a portrait party to practice caricature and capturing a likeness.
the portrait party is two years old this month!
the portrait above was drawn by my sister, lali shaw!
my wife and i moved this month and, although we love our new home, it hasn't had internet access until this afternoon. perfect timing actually because, just this afternoon, i received a beautiful surprise from roz stendahl. she and her friends at mcba (the minnesota center for book arts) had a portrait party! they made books from their drawings and they sent me a copy! the cartoon above is by ken avidor. he opened the party with a pep talk and drew this picture of the party in progress. thanks for including me everyone!
