Digital Art: Abstract Portrait of a Real Person

Abstract Portrait of a Real Person:

This artwork is by the 19-year-old Hungarian photographer Flora Borsi.  She imagines what the models of contorted and skewed paintings must have looked like if they were distorted in real life.  Through some hilarious photo manipulation, Borsi examins the models for paintings by Kees van Dongen, Modigliani, and Picasso among others.


Project Criteria:

You are going to distort a portrait of a person to resemble an Abstract painting by a famous artist.

1)  Images you need to search for:

• Abstract Portrait
• Portrait of a person (famous or not) standing in a similar pose.  Clothes can be changed!
• Background that is similar to the Abstract Portrait

 2)  Start a new Canvas:

• Name: Abstract Portrait
• Width: 12"
• Height: 18"
• Resolution: 300
• Background: White

3)  Open the Abstract Portrait and the Portrait of a Person that you are going to distort

4)  Drag the image of the Portrait of the Person that you are going to distort onto your canvas and Free Transform to the largest size you can make it.

5)  New tools that may help you when distorting your Portrait:

• Smudge Tool
• Clone Tool

6)  After distorting, you can work on adjusting colors to match if need be and add a background.

More Examples by Artist Flora Borsi:

Teacher's Example:

 Abstract Painting by
Pablo Picasso of a woman

Portrait of Elizabeth Moss
Looking in the same direction