Advanced Art Students Create Portraits for Global Kindness

 

Students received digital photographs of youth from Cameroon, who range in age from 12 to 15 years old. After studying the photographs and choosing a medium for their creation, each student created a 9 x12 portrait of a child. The portraits were the students' final project after studying how to draw the human face by using value, shape and texture. They will be mailed to Cameroon at the end of March. On the back of each portrait, the students will draw an outline of their hand to symbolically shake hands or give a high-five to the child and also will include their name, age, a photo and a brief message. Representatives from the Memory Project will deliver the portraits, along with several thousand others, and will send a video of the delivery that captures the children’s excitement when they receive the portraits.

 

 

The Memory Project was founded by Ben Schumaker in 2004. Since Ben had always enjoyed creating portraits for friends and family in school art classes, he had the idea to organize art teachers and their students to create portraits that could serve as positive and heartfelt memories for children around the world. Once he started delivering these portraits, he realized that they also helped to build feelings of international friendship and solidarity. The portraits seemed to make the world a little smaller and kinder, and that is what the Memory Project is all about. To learn more about the Memory Project, visit www.memoryproject.org.

 

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