Learning to draw and paint portraits is a layered process of acquiring the skills to convincingly render both a physical and expressive likeness.
This is the mission of the Portrait Academy -- step-by-progressive-step you will acquire the foundational skill-set that sets you on the road to becoming an artist with your own expressive voice.
Each module is thoughtfully curated to build upon the other.
A word to the wise: The language of painting is distinct from that of the photograph. The photograph is a dissembler. It distorts and obfuscates. Worse, copying photographs leads the beginner down the wrong path from which there is no easy return.
You learn to paint by copying the masters. That is where you learn the syntax of painting. It is through copying that your expressive voice deepens and acquires meaning.
Being an artist is a lifelong voyage of enriching discovery. But it is a voyage that demands first taking the time to establish your solid foundation. A leaking boat does not travel far.
How long does it take?
Less than a month. No kidding. The core skill of drawing and painting is striking shape.. Everything. Absolutely everything builds upon that simple premise. You begin with the square. Simple and elegant. Just as the French master Corot did in painting Emma Dobigny in the video above.
Yet almost every beginner fails to see that. We do not see the forest for the trees.
The beginner is bedeviled by being feature centric -- often beginning with an eye and growing out the portrait like a fungus -- and prey to symbolic preconceptions.
We look but we do not see.
The good news is that the human head subscribes to one of only three dynamic rectangles. With small deviations, of course. The square is one of these.
Learn to recognize and strike these three rectangles. And you're well on your way to mastering portrait drawing and painting.
Acquiring your portrait skills is best served in a modular progression.
As you progress through each module your drawing and painting skills will increase rapidly. I've been teaching for over thirty years and have taught thousands of artists. Many have graduated to becoming full-time professional artists and instructors.
In those three decades my teachings have been thoroughly tested and provened over and over again.
If you don't know me, check out my monthly PORTRAIT PAINTER MAGAZINE. It's free and you don't need to subscribe.
NEW RELEASE!
Painting Alla Prima Portraits from Photographs
Don't just copy the photograph ... make it your own!
Just released this 3½ hours, ultra-2K video takes you step-by-step through the process and strategy of translating the photograph into an alla prima oil painting that is as fresh as mama's hot biscuits at Sunday dinner!
Alla prima, also known as premiere coup, is a first strike—a painting resolved in a single sitting. But I'm not hide-bound by rules. There is good practice and there are beautiful, compelling paintings. The twain doesn't always meet. That said, alla prima requires both a sound foundation and working strategy.
You begin with striking the big shape, followed by blocking-in and serving up the initial half-tones in the abstract. Just like John Singer Sargent taught.
And then you're out the gate! Mixing flesh color and building up the paint surface (the abstract structural surface) with a sympathetic concordance to the underlying anatomical form until an engaging, 3-dimensional alla prima portrait is achieved.
View the trailer, it's less than two minutes, and see why I get so excited about painting alla prima!
And here's another reason to get excited ... take advantage of my NEW release offer of only $37. But only until midnight, February 20th. Thereafter it's $77. Use your $40 savings for new brushes.
Upcoming Zoom Workshop
Painting John Singer Sargent's Lady Agnew of Lochnaw
You'll be learning John Singer Sargent's painting process beginning with striking the arabesque, blocking-in and serving up the initial half-tones in the abstract.
From there you will proceed with spotting and tiling the color/value notes and planar forms learning to see through the eyes of a sculptor. Working general to specific the portrait emerges.
My upcoming, four session, Portrait Painting Zoom Class begins Tuesday, March 25 @ 18:30 PST and continues to April 15th.
In addition to the Zoom recording the workshop is filmed in ultra-resolution video and is your's to keep.
Write me at michael-britton-workshops@artacademy.com for the syllabus and supply list and to register.
