For the serious portrait painter ...
A new issue every month featuring the technical nuts & bolts of painting portraits in oil. Whether you are a beginner unsure of how to begin a portrait -- well, you begin with striking the BIG shape. That's where the likeness and expression resides -- or a seasoned painter looking to push your painting to the next level -- i.e., the rhythmic interplay of fractal recursions and cool/warm color relationships -- the needs of the serious painter are addressed.
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Drawing into Painting: Learning to Paint Alla Prima Portraits
The singular determinant of a successful alla prima portrait painting is STRUCTURE. Everything else follows.
Structure begins with striking the BIG shape thus establishing the gesture and foundation for the likeness with a few deft strokes. I'll teach you this critical skill.
From the big shape the primary planar structure is blocked-in paving the way toward a solidly grounded portrait.
To get directly to the root of understanding structure in portrait painting you'll be working from master drawings by Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent.
You will learn how to strike the big shape—the singularly most important skill an artist must have—and proceed to learn how to mix accurate flesh colors and apply them with a sympathetic concordance to the underlying facial form ... that’s the essence of realist painting.
This will teach you to see past the surface details into the building blocks of facial form.
Utilizing a restricted palette of four colors you'll learn how to efficiently mix flesh tones.
Once the structure and planar elements are established our palette is expanded to its full range and the portrait is expressively resolved with brush, palette knife and the occasional finger applied with a sympathetic concordance to the underlying anatomical forms thus rendering a 3-dimensional alla prima portrait that is as fresh as hot biscuits!
The workshop is presented in two 2-session modules which are designed for both the beginner and those seeking to strengthen their skill-set.
Module 1: Thomas Eakins (American 1844-1916)
Eakins was trained in Paris under the tutelage of Gerome, the foremost academic painter of the late 19th Century, whose teachings influence most ARC-accredited academies today.
From this elegant profile drawing you will develop, step-by-step, an alla prima portrait painting whose process is presented in two sessions.
Tuesdays, July 15 & 22 18:30 - 21:00 PST $197
Module 2: John Singer Sargent (American 1856-1925)
Sargent, too, was trained in Paris but his teacher, Carolus Duran, stressed a freer, painterly approach that was diametrically opposed to the illustrative, academic method of Gerome.
Employing Sargent's expressive charcoal portrait of Mary Smyth Hunter as a foil, we, like Sargent, will begin with striking the big shape with a few deft strokes of charcoal before 'serving up the half-tones in the abstract' (Sargent's words).
The facial forms are then extrapolated via spotting color/value notes with an economy of means wherein the portrait emerges. This is the essence of bravura painting.
Tuesdays, July 29 & August 5 18:30 - 21:00 PST $197
REGISTER FOR BOTH MODULES FOR ONLY $320. (And save $74)
For more information and to register write me at: michael-britton-workshops@artacademy.com