Look (Close)ly

Chuck Close is an American painter, artist, and photographer who developed his love for art at a young age. Close suffered from a learning disability and a neuro-muscular condition that made school work and sports very challenging. Art was his calling and with a lot of practice over the years he developed his own art style while painting large scale portraits.

The picture above is a self-portrait of Chuck Close where you can see his specific style is prominent. He starts off by photographing his subject and transferring the image to his art using the grid method. In each square of the grid he meticulously paints several colors on top of each other to show the different tones in human skin as well as highlights and shadows on their face.

'EMMA" by Chuck Close

As you can see, the moment you look at the painting you can tell the all the features and details portray a human face, but as you look closer each and every square on the painting is different. The pattern is very organic and looks like random spots of paint. But it all works together to create an optical illusion.

My experience with the grid method alone,while drawing a self portrait, takes a lot of time and observation. I can only imagine how hard it would be to to make huge portraits and paint every single detail in every square. Chuck Close definitely has lots of patience and an eye for detail.

Emily is a junior this year in my AP Studio Art class. Here are a few examples of her work: