A few months after graduating from the Maine College of Art & Design (MECA) in May of 2006, I started teaching Mixed-Media Portraiture (MMP) through their Continuing Studies Department. I was asked to teach this course based on the popularity of my senior thesis which was a series of eighty plus mixed-media portraits of fellow students, professors, and others in the MECA community. Fall of ’06 was the start of fourteen years of teaching MMP at MECA. At the beginning of each semester, I stress that creating a portrait is not necessarily about rendering a likeness, although that can certainly be part of it. I do bring the skulls and head casts out of the supply closet and teach proportions, and how to draw the face and head. This is the important foundation.
Student studying the scale and structure of the head by drawing her own head beside a
skull.
Student working on a large ink self-portrait.
My main goal is to encourage students to create portraits that go beyond the outer appearance of the sitter, portraits which speak of an inner state of being, the psyche, the emotional and spiritual aspects of the individual. Over the years I compiled a series of exercises designed to loosen everyone up and to yield innovative and authentic mark making. Guided by these exercises and using a wide variety of drawing media, and access to models who often don colorful costumes, students create exciting, original portraits. Here are a few of my favorite exercises.
A MECA model, Jo Goiran.
Martha Miller’s class demo drawing: charcoal and white pastel on tan paper.
Blind Contour Drawing (BCD)
Using a pencil or a pen, and looking only at the model and not the paper, slowly follow the contours of the features of the sitter. Think of the pencil or pen point moving along the contours like a teeny car on a road, taking a leisurely Sunday drive. Do this for ten minutes. This exercise strengthens the act of seeing and the connection between eye and hand. More importantly, it shuts out mental judgment. The resulting drawings are often skewed yet incredibly accurate, and knock-out beautiful. I like to introduce my students to the drawings of Elizabeth Layton, a woman who at age sixty-eight took a drawing class at a local university where she learned how to do BCD and went on to create a series of fierce and witty self-portraits that reflected her response to contemporary social issues. By drawing daily, Layton cured herself of chronic depression.
Student working with a brush taped to the end of a long stick and dipped in ink.
Student working with oil wash.
Ink Drawing Using a Paintbrush Taped to the End of a Long Stick
Dip the brush in black ink and stand arm and stick length from the paper. Notice that the brush when fully loaded with ink yields an opaque black mark. As the ink gets used up on the paper, a wide array of brush marks result, from solid black to wispy grays. This is an awkward way to work for sure, a real challenge. I have to constantly remind students not to “choke up on the bat”: the temptation to get closer to the paper is strong. I tell them about Matisse who did drawings on his wall from his sick bed, with charcoal taped to the end of a long stick. I tell them about Dublin-born Christy Brown, a young artist with cerebral palsy who had only the use of his left foot, who using that foot pulled his drawing pad quietly out from under his bed in the darkened crowded attic bedroom that he shared with his siblings, and painted a portrait of their drunk father who was raging violently in the room below them.
Student mixed-media portrait, ink, charcoal, and pastel.
Charcoal Powder
I like to have a spotlight on the model in a darkened room for this exercise, creating pronounced light and shadow. Dip a flannel rag in charcoal powder and wipe the entire page with it, creating a soft gray ground. Using a kneaded eraser, pull away areas where the light is shining on the sitter, see the areas of light simply as shapes. The drawing can be stopped at this point, or it can be further developed using charcoal to add defining lines and a plastic eraser to create sharper, whiter areas. There’s something wonderful though about adhering to a stopping point and calling a drawing finished even when the hands itch to work it further. There is such a thing as killing and overworking a drawing. A friend of mine told me about a painting professor of his who circled the classroom and stopped to look over his shoulder and exclaimed, “You’ve got it!” On the next rotation he stopped and said, “You’ve lost it.” It’s an art and a discipline to know when to stop!
Student working with acrylic wash and pastel.
Collage Portraits
On two long tables I dump piles of discarded magazines, old calendars, junk mail, wallpaper samples, and whatever scraps wind up in my big collage boxes. The model is dressed in colorful clothing and sits on the stage within a giant still life. I invite the students to pour through the paper piles on the two tables and start ripping and tearing to create a palette of color and textures for their collage portrait. Everyone gets a glob of YES! Paste and spreads their papers all over the floor around their workspace, so they can see and grab what they need as their work progresses. The entire classroom resembles a giant collage! Paper can be ripped or cut with scissors and we talk about how those paper edges are akin to drawn lines. Collages can be pieced together like mosaics, or layered with large swatches simply describing planes of color. Symbols and bits of written material added to the collage can inspire a narrative, or the piece can become purely abstract. I share the collages of Romare Bearden who pieced together figures and faces with a patchwork of features, taking a nose ripped from one source, a leg from another, a mouth and eyes from yet another, all these features varying wildly in scale, creating rich, quirky tapestries. Over the years I noticed that students were often wary about making a collage, perhaps remembering their cut-and-paste posters from junior high. These same students confessed with surprise and delight that collage night turned out to be one of their favorite classes.
Student using pastel on acrylic ground.
Student with self-portrait, pastel on acrylic ground.
Martha Miller’s class demo: oil wash, charcoal powder, and pastel.
Work “In the Manner Of”
On a large table are piles of photocopies of many artists’ portrait and figure drawings, exhibiting a wide range of mark making. I invite students to this smorgasbord of possibilities and ask them to choose an artist to emulate while drawing from the model. I ask them to consider what type of marks their chosen artist used and how those marks were made. Are the lines jagged and chaotic as if the artist had ingested too much caffeine? Are the marks heavy and dark, are they made with an aggressive energy? Are they gentle, light, delicate? I ask the students to channel their chosen artist and adopt their way of working. This is a great exercise in getting out of one’s comfort zone and exploring new ways of working that can expand one’s mark vocabulary.
Student drawing, “Spinning Head” exercise, charcoal.
The Spinning Head
The seated model looks west for two minutes, then northwest, then north, northeast, and finally east while students draw the model’s head in each of these positions, superimposing the quick studies. The resulting layered drawings are dynamic and create a feeling of fast movement, or perhaps psychic upheaval; their energetic wiry nature often evokes the work of Alberto Giacometti. These exciting drawings really open students’ eyes to a radical sort of portraiture.
A student’s mixed-media double portrait using ink and pastel.
Student double portrait, pastel on acrylic ground.
The Exaggerated Portrait
Push the portrait toward caricature. We look at the work of Alice Neel, Egon Schiele, Max Beckmann, and Stanley Spencer and see how skewed proportions can create powerful psychological effects.
Another favorite exercise, I ask my students to make a really ugly drawing, then a really beautiful drawing. Hands down the uglies usually win in terms of fabulous, inventive portrait studies. Team drawings, playing with mixes of media such as turp and oil and charcoal, or acrylic and pastel, having more than one costumed model are also all favorite strategies that result in wildly imaginative portrait studies.
Student using oil wash and pastel.
I retired from teaching at MECA at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and have been lured out of my own studio to teach a few classes and workshops for outside groups. I am always thrilled to see what my students create in any venue and learn new ways of seeing from their work.
Image at top: Martha Miller’s class demo: oil wash and charcoal.