Inner Me – Self Portrait

“The value of doing self-portraits for me has always been the reaffirmation that I do exist.”

Jim Dine (b.1935)
“Once you begin the process of looking at yourself through a painters eyes, it leads you into a voyage of self-discovery, where you also look at yourself as a personality and a structure”

Gary Falgen - artist

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) from a poem “Song to Myself”

Self-portraits have been painted in many different ways by many different artists. They are important to historians as the work shows historical and cultural significant of the artist, and also as a record of how artists perceived themselves at a particular time in history. Many artists have tackled this subject – not all work being realistic or truly ‘photographic’ in nature, artists such as Rembrandt and Van Gogh painted themselves many times over the period of their careers. Picasso’s style changed many times over his lifetime and at each period his self-imagery changed too.
Grade 12 Project 1 Self Portrait

Assignment – Using any media produce a self-portrait – ‘The Inner Me’
This should be a work that you feel expresses yourself, have some qualities that others would recognize as being ‘typical’ of you, show some of your qualities or reflect some of your personality in an outwardly visual way.
Research should be done in your IW and will become the supporting work for the finished piece. Remember to look at the work of other artists, they can help you to find a style, document all thought processes clearly, why you did certain things, why you choose one method/media above another. One way to get started is to brainstorm everything about yourself – create a mind map about YOU, look for links and then think about how to visualize the characteristics you have chosen to be important.
The work should be of quality and be good enough that it can be used as part of your final exhibition/portfolio
The project you are about to undertake is going to have all the same elements which were expected during 11^th grade. This project should incorporate your interests and strengths which you discovered last year. Documentation in IW should now clearly show how and where you got your ideas and how you have developed them.

	IW	Studio
Week 1	Brain storming ideas for your own self-portrait. Design ideas for studio piece.
Week 2	Development of the best idea through into a final design. Research Artists who inspire you. Experiment in IW with Techniques	Begin your 1st studio piece.
Week 3	Record your progress with the studio work. What are the challenges? What is successful? Experiment in IW with Techniques	Continue with studio piece.
Week 4	Record progress in studio. Critical analysis of final piece.	Finish studio piece. Critique.

IW	HL	Std L	Date Due
	No. of pages due
Week 1	4	3	3rd Sept
Week 2	3	2	10th Sept
Week 3	3	2	17th Sept
Week 4	2	1	Critique 23rd Sept