Course Description: Portrait Painting
This is a six-week course with a seventh week for wrap-up and review.
The goal of the course is to teach fundamental concepts that will allow students to draw and paint strong portraits throughout their lives. While I use PhotoImpact 10 for digital painting, the bulk of the course material will relate to any media.
We will briefly cover general fine art topics such as composition, form, shape, hue, value, draftsmanship, lighting issues, and more. Thereupon we will explore the skull, muscles, tendons, teeth, and eyeballs, to gain a thorough understanding of the structure and elements underneath the face, and how this relates to capturing a likeness. And the all important topic of the skin, its transparency, and its representation using color, will be examined.
Our primary focus will be the exploration of the notion of likeness, and how to achieve it. We will complete a series of sketch exercises to get a likeness of a face. The importance of the value study will be discussed. The final project will be to complete a portrait of a person of the students acquaintance, or a self-portrait, which will take up the second half of the course. That portion will be taught workshop-style, with the student presenting their painting at various stages of completion, to receive critique and suggestions.
A painting program such as Ulead PhotoImpact, PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, Corel Painter, or equivalent, or access to a scanner (if the student is using traditional media) is a requirement.
Prerequisite: Fine Art Principles and or Perspective Drawing: Heads and Hands (At the discretion of the instructor, the prerequisite may be waived if sufficient background can be demonstrated by the student.) Contact gigi@visual-arts-academy.com
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