Art Practical: Portraiture Painting Online

Based on acrylics, this course introduces all the basic techniques used in portraiture from drawing the face and shoulders to painting the full and half-body portrait. Working from enlarged photographs, students learn to accurately transfer and draw the head, neck and face and to use light, shade and colour to create a good likeness. Supported by detailed handouts the course explains how the technical side of portraiture (like colour mixing for naturalistic skin tones, chiaroscuro and measuring proportions) can support more intuitive and individual approaches to the subject. The course finishes with a personal painting project.

Using a simplified, structured, and step-by-step approach, students will learn the skills and techniques necessary to be able to paint portraits. Creating portraits that have a convincing sense of shape, form and colour is difficult to do, and this course looks at various techniques used to do this. By learning to interpret the human head into its abstract elements (shape, tone & colour), you will gain confidence in how to paint portraits in a structured and methodical manner. The course offers a balance between traditional academic techniques (used by the old masters); and also more contemporary approaches focusing on mark making and paint texture.