Richeson School of Art & Gallery
Kimberly, Wisconsin
3 Day portrait painting workshop
The purpose of this workshop is to study the building stages of creating a portrait painting from life. By following a basic process, we more closely examine each stage and its correlating visual principles.
Students work on two portrait paintings over this three-day workshop. The first days focus on drawing and proportions with a brown paint and then add fleshtones to build the planes of the head, features and practice modelling form. This will complete the first portrait exercise. The second day, students begin a two-day painting of a new model. The class begins the portrait in the same way, giving students an second chance to practice the method. Then. there is an extra day to develop the portrait, adding color which includes a basic color philosphy and how it relates to color in the fleshtones and surrounding objects such as clothing, hair and backdrop. Students also have an opportunity to further model form, develop the focal point and go about the finish pass. All stages are demonstrated by the instructor along with individual attention at each student’s easel. In addition, students study the use of edges, the concept of larger-to-smaller relationships, planar thinking, anatomical landmarks, the principles of light on form and paint handling. Students leave with two completed portrait paintings, a greater understanding of the process of start to finish and having discussed many of the visual principles the visual world is based upon.