I began my portrait painting training at the Art Student's League in New York. The instructors were acclaimed. The studios cramped and overcrowded. Promises were made. Few were kept. Progress was painfully minimal.
My supposed training was tinkering. Fix that, correct this, make it more luminous!? No coherent rationale was offered.
In fairness, my instructors were present only twice a week and faced with upwards of sixty students. All of them requiring attention within the allotted three hours of class time.
Swept aside in an obscure studio was an ill-attended class studiously drawing rectangles and shapes and checking them afterward to assess their accuracy. Being young and judgmental I dismissed this class out-of-hand. How boring and stultifying. I returned to my cramped class to tinker.
A few weeks later I again wandered into that class of outliers and my jaw hit the floor!
They had all advanced far, far beyond any of my then-fellow students, some of whom had been attending that cramped class for years.
I didn't know it then, but that small class was being successfully trained according to the teachings of John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase. It is a curriculum that works.
Suffice it say that I couldn't join this class fast enough! I was tired of spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.
Copying John Singer Sargent's Carmela Bertagna, 1879 from the initial strike & massing to bravura finish.
Your portrait painting specialty channel
A step by step structured pathway from beginner to professional
A portrait is the felt conveyance of individuality; the intensity of the regard and the focus on the specific. It confers agency and fills the empty spaces.
It goes without saying that the portrait is the most challenging of all the realist genres of painting.
Drawing is the primal means of visual communication and expression.
The practice of portrait painting requires a specific skill-set that can only be acquired with a layered approach of shape recognition, visual awareness and knowledge.
Learn to see shape. That is the essence of the likeness and character of your sitter
First, and foremost, is learning how to block-in the specific BIG shape with a laser precision. Within the big shape resides the likeness and expressive/emotional tenent. I call this striking the arabesque, it informs line, shape and gesture. Terminology implies intent.
Once this skill is acquired, this first hurdle cleared, the pathway to mastering portrait painting is clarified and the journey made more sure.
Portrait Painter TV begins your structured pathway at absolute ground zero and layer-by-layer you will acquire the skill-sets and syntax of solid portrait painting.
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Try Portrait Painter TV for FREE for two weeks
After that your comprehensive portrait training is only $17/month. You pay monthly. There is no yearly plan so you can pause or cancel whenever you need to. If you can only paint once a week it is still less than that coffee steaming on your taboret.
I'll notify you two days before your trial ends. Allowing you time to make an informed decision as to whether or not I am the teacher for you.
The Workshops are also available as individual on-demand videos.
Copying William Merritt Chase's Portrait of Louis Betts, c. 1900
Following the block-in and massing the half-tones are served up in the abstract. These are Sargent's words and his teaching method.
For the serious portrait painter ...
Featuring the technical nuts & bolts of painting portraits in oil. Whether you are a beginner unsure of how to begin a portrait or a seasoned painter looking to push your painting to the next level the needs of the serious painter are addressed.
And PORTRAIT PAINTER is free!
... you don't need to subscribe, but why risk missing an issue?
'Oh how I look forward to your monthly issues! This one is definitely not for the faint of heart or to leisurely view with morning tea. I will come back to it though and devour every line and image! Thank you for your knowledge and gift of writing. I so enjoy it!' Nancy
