Portraiture: A Drawing and Painting Introduction

with John Murphy-Woolford

Would you like to be able to draw and paint portraits but feel like you are missing some knowledge and experience? Capturing a likeness is a challenging prospect. This course provides the fundamental elements and understanding of drawing and painting which enable good likenesses to be made and support your portrait projects.

No previous experience of portraiture is necessary: this course is also for beginners.

Course Description

Using famous paintings and drawings from art history as source material, we investigate different approaches to portraiture and image making as we develop our drawing and painting skills. The use of source material instead of a model is intentional and important. With source material, our subject does not move. This makes it easier to study. Secondly, the original artist has already interpreted the sitter and made a creative response. We can lean much when we study this.

Lesson summary

Each lesson will begin with a short presentation giving a context to the aims of the class and we will look at some of the images we will work from. In each class we will investigate an aspect of drawing important to portraiture and think about how it has been used in a variety of examples. Students will then spend time responding to these images, making drawings of their own with the guidance and support of the tutor.

Picasso

Modigliani

Do not feel intimidated by portraiture. It is a skill that, with some work and guidance is accessible to anyone who is ready to spend some time looking and studying. This course will give you the confidence and tools needed for making portraits from a live model.     

John Murphy-Woolford

Course Programme:

The first three lessons are drawing specific. We will then introduce some painting basics and students can select whether to continue with drawing , progress to painting or a mix of both.

Elements of portraiture covered in this course:

  • Line and its various uses.

  • Plane and shape of the head.

  • Composition.

  • Tone in drawing and painting

  • Working from big to small ideas.

  • Underpainting and grisaille

  • The need for editing.

  • Quick sketches (and the element of time)

  • The skull and its landmark features.

  • Measuring and eyeballing.

  • Basic colour palette

  • Self-Portraiture.

Modigiliani

Van Gogh

Materials

All students will need:

Graphite pencils. HB, 2B. Eraser. Paper / Sketch book A4 or A3. Willow charcoal.

Students who wish to paint in class will also need:

Oil / acrylic sketch pad. A4 or A3. Or small canvas board, A4 size or similar.

Paint. Either acrylic or oil. (If using oil, make sure you plan how you are going to transport your wet work after class. There is no storage at the school.)

Burnt umber, ivory black, titanium white, yellow ochre, cadmium red.  

Odourless / low odour solvent if using oil paint.

Jam jar or similar container.

Palette. Wood or paper.

Brushes suitable for acrylic or oil.

Tissue paper.