This is one of my most successful made from scratch lesson plans that I teach. It's the Keystone of my portraiture unit.

1. Kehinde Wiley Portraits- Criteria & Objectives
• Students will make a portrait in the style of Kehinde Wiley using
graphite and a tessellated background.
• Students will use a high resolution (800 x 1000 px. 150 dpi.) photo
of themselves facing forward in black in white, a one inch acetate
grid, a ruler, graphite pencil, eraser Kleenex, blending stump,
scissors, glue, and construction paper.
• Students will make a tessellated background using a basic double
slide square tessellation. Students may opt for a more complex
rotation, split slides, or other shapes for their tessellations.
• Students will use a one inch grid on their reference, and a one and
a half inch grid on their artwork
• Students will use the grid to make as naturalistic/realistic
representation of your self. Students must use a full range of
value, a blending stump, eraser, and any other method to create
this representation short of tracing.
• The objective is to naturalistically represent the human face with
the assistance of a grid.

2. Kehinde Wiley
•
•
•
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Born in 1977 (he's in his thirties)
Lives in New York city
His work has been exhibited
internationally and is a part of
major collections in museums
across the U.S.
The themes of his paintings stretch from reinterpretations
of master's work to simply depicting African American men
in positions of power, namely that of French aristocracy,
renaissance masters, or other neoclassical masters
Works primarily with Oil paint and gold leaf on paper and
canvas, his works range in size from the small to the HUGE

13. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ Napoleon
I on his Imperial Throne (1806)

14. Theodore GéricaultThe Officer of the Hussars, oil on
canvas, circa 1812, 37 in × 105 in,
Louvre, Paris

16. Tessellations
•
Tessellation is the process of creating a
two dimensional plane using the
repetition of a geometric shape with no
overlaps and no gaps.
•
For your tessellation you can use three
colors, you must use at least two
•
You must start with a 2 x 2 in. square.
•
How you orient your tessellations should
be along a regular interval in a grid.
•
How the grid is oriented is up to you.
M. C. Escher Tessellations

17. 1. Cut out a 2 in. x 2 in. or a
3 in. x 3in. square from a
sheet of notebook paper
or scrap paper
2. Draw a design starting in
corner A and ending in
corner B. The line has to
go from corner to corner.
3. Cut it out, slide it to
the other side of
the square and tape it
along that edge.
4. You can do this again on
the top edge with the
available space.

18. 1. Trace your tessellation tile on a piece of construction paper
2. Cut out your tiles
3. Paste them on another color of construction paper, stagger them in a
alternating pattern that interlocks
4. Make sure you bring your pattern all the way to the edge and cut off
the extra. Fill the entire background with tiles.
1.
3.
2.
4.

19. To perform a more complicated tessellation you can split the
design halfway. Slide from any portion of the square. And when
you glue down your tiles glue them on a diagonal grid.
1.
2.
3.

22. My Example, close but not a complete likeness
Turn on ZoomIt
Ctrl+2= draw
Shift+click for line

23. Student Examples
Acetate grid, dry erase markers
can outline features
Photo reference

24. First attempt, the student
did not refer to the grid
Second attempt after
acknowledging the grid