A Beginning Portrait Class at The Armory Arts & Events Center in Napoleon

I taught a brief workshop on portrait painting last Sunday at The Armory Arts & Events Center in Napoleon, Ohio. We started out sketching front and side views using Andrew Loomis' well-known techniques for creating a 'normal' face. Of course everyone varies form normal somewhat- that's what makes us all unique individuals.

After a bit of drawing practice we moved right into painting and I chose an American Indian as our subject. The photo reference was black and white, which simplified the values. Their skin tones are more even than Caucasians and (I think), easier to mix. Using a simple recipe of burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and titanium white, we were able to come up with a pretty wide variety of tones. Throwing in a bit of cadmium red easily warmed the mixtures where needed.

Tuesday Painting Class

These painters are finally getting gutsy and loading up their brushes with paint- and that makes all the difference! This week we painted a landscape with a beautiful peach colored sky. It had a split complementary color scheme so it was a bit more complicated than anything we've done before, but everyone handled it pretty well. Keep in mind that this is class number six for many of them, but also there are a couple of first time painters here.

Row Boats

Last week my adult painting class met for the third week and they painted row boats. The catch here was that they were allowed to change the color of the rowboat if the wished. Or they could stick to the relatively neutral sepia colored boat I gave them for a reference.

It was jun to watch their creativity come into play. As always, no two paintings are the same. They're not even close! Tomorrow is our final class in the session and I think they have all learned a little bit about color mixing and brush strokes.

Class Update

A few of the students taking my painting class tell me they are checking my blog for updates and are wondering if they are going to see their paintings posted here. To those folks I say-- yes! Unfortunately, we had five people in class last week and I only got pictures of four of the paintings. Someone had to rush away a bit early.

It's worth noting that they struggled with the same issues for the most part.
1) tree limbs are segments and they vary in width and length, becoming narrower as they grow away from the trunk.
2) a little green beside the orange will go a long way toward making the orange look brighter- without having to resort to using so much bright color.

Overall they had some good work to show and I know they learned a few things about color and had the experience of using a preprimed gray canvas board.

Acrylic Painting Class in Bryan

I'm doing a four week painting class in Bryan and we started off all painting the same thing. I did a Powerpoint presentation showing the painting step-by-step and gave them some info on color and how to block in and we were off an running. Next week they get to choose from flowers or a landscape. I like to have them all do the same thing the first night so I can get an idea of how much experience they have. The subject was a rowboat with Ocracoke Lighthouse int he background. Everyone did quite well!

My version of the painting we did is below.