8th grade expressive grid portraits

I like to do a grid portrait first with 8th grade. This year I wanted the portraits to be a little more expressive and dynamic. I showed students many examples of expressive artist including the Fauves and Andy Warhol. I got a strange mix of projects. That's good, right?

Grinding with middle school can be the biggest pain of all time. My team finally came up with a simple way to do this.

Take a one inch plastic ruler and trace the ruler in rows vertically and horizontally on your 8 1/2 x 11 photo. This will give you one inch squares. This requires no notch making!

Take a standard 28 x 22 poster board and do a two inch grid using the same method as above. My colleague found some cardboard to make a two inch wide "ruler". It works fabulous.

The poster board will end up with more squares so just trim off the excess.

We used oil pastel to create the value. I encouraged them to be expressive with color choice.

Supplies: 8 1/2 photo, 22x28 poster board, 1 inch wide ruler, pencil, 2 inch wide ruler made from cardboard strip, oil pastels ( or colored pencils)