Chuck Close is famous for his extremely detailed portraits.

These portraits are large scale and inspect every hair, pore, and mole on the faces of his

models.

To achieve these spectacular results Chuck Close photographs his subject and then precisely grids the image.

He carefully reproduces the value and texture square by square.

Part of the charm and brilliance of his portraits is that he chooses not to glamorize or idealize his subjects. He draws each wrinkle, flaw, and casual expression. This only enhances the “reality” of the images.

These portraits are casual in posture, but feel even more personal and telling because of this.

Notice that these students are working SQUARE by SQUARE to properly capture the image. This is the assignment. You will not do a general overall drawing, but work square by square, row by row. Carefully reproducing the values in each square to arrive at impressive results.

The following are all student results of this assignment. The most successful followed the assignment very carefully.