Your pathway from beginner to mastery
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Learning to paint portraits is a layer-cake process; each layer supports the next. The initial striking of the big shape supports the massing-in of the primary light/dark pattern that supports the half-tones served up in the abstract. Well, that was John Singer Sargent's way of saying paint from general to specific -- the inviolable rule of painting!
The other 'rule', oft ignored at great peril to your development as an artist, is the practice of copying the great masters. That is where you learn both the practice and language of painting. Language evolves. It doesn't appear out of nowhere. Verily, there is nothing new under the sun.
My teaching practice, my pedagogy, is a layered approach that begins with training you how to strike shape and establish proportion with precision, and a guided pathway to painting bravura portraits. Portraits that are deceptively effortless and as fresh as home-made biscuits.
Nothing worthwhile comes easy. These video on-demand workshops are presented at the college level. My teaching is accessible, not dumbed-down.
The video on-demand works are presented in ascending order guiding you from absolute beginner to master.
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Antonio Mancini was a close friend of John Singer Sargent and a powerful influence on Sargent's development. This is my copy of Mancini's Portrait of Carminella 1879. Painting bravura is more than a technique. It is a language that requires study supported by a solid foundation of facial structure.
I came to know Michael Britton a few decades ago as a student. I benefited greatly from his extensive background and aesthetic poetry in terms of my classical training in art and specifically portraiture.
The things I learned through Michael have stood me well over the years. I can't tell you how excited I was when I heard about this new iteration that he was offering.
Like all good things that have value, we need to keep our hand in it and practice over time. Michael brings extensive knowledge and a well-honed pedagogy with regard to art and the creation of it. I might add that he has a beautiful and sensitive body of artwork that he has created over the years and continues to keep his hand in, as well. This means something. He does not just talk the talk.
Michael is so generous with his knowledge to his students. He is a funny guy as well, which I really appreciate.
I would highly recommend planting your flag firmly in the ground in terms of your artistic training with Michael. The man knows what he is speaking of. I feel very grateful that he's created this offering for us. It's hard to believe this caliber and quality of instruction is being offered for so little.
As I remember Michael saying one time, that "we stand on the shoulders of giants" referring in our artistic endeavours and education, which lasts a lifetime.
What an opportunity to to do just that with your training with Michael in The Portrait Painter TV workshops.
Linden Morris Delrio, April 2026
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Foundations of Portrait Drawing & Painting trains you how to accurately assess proportion and to strike shape with precision. From that essential premise you proceed to acquiring an understanding of the structures of the head which is the key to creating three-dimensional portraits that breathe life.
Foundations of Portrait Drawing & Painting
There is a yawning delta between perception and reality. We look, but we do not see. The realist artist's training is the stripping of the veils of faulty perceptions until the actuality of shape and form presents.
Drawing and painting portraits is essentially about shape. And getting the BIG shape right is where the likeness and gesture resides. Everything--proportion, expression and meaning--builds upon that simple premise.
I call getting the BIG shape striking the arabesque. Arabesque denotes rhythm and movement. Terminology implies intent.
This is where the beginner is well advised to start.
20 lessons. 5 hours, 22 minutes [Captioned]
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The Facial Features continues your training from The Foundations of Portrait Drawing & Painting.
Each of the features (eye, nose, mouth & ear) is presented in both frontal and 7/8's profile view instilling a sound understanding of their respective structure.
The Facial Features.
Having acquired the skill set of rendering the architecture of facial form we proceed to understanding the structures of the facial features of both the frontal and the 7/8’s profile view.
It is poor practice to learn drawing from the photograph. Drawing/Painting is a distinct language from that of the photograph which often distorts and presents an exaggerated depth of field. Instead you will study the facial features from my template paintings.
18 lessons. 5 hours, 50 minutes [Captioned]
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The very real danger for both beginning and intermediate portrait painters is being feature centric. As an artist you must look deeper into the facial planes and structures that comprise the three-dimensional portrait and expresses the spirit.
Beginning to Paint: Planar Structures
John Singer Sargent strongly advised his students to spend some time painting the head without the features. That way you’ll acquire an understanding of the planar structures of the head in which to fully realize 3-dimensional effect in your portrait painting.
Beginning to Paint: Planar Structures is your initial foray into painting portraits in oil. Mixing flesh tones is a large hurdle to cross. Hence, you'll work with a limited palette of only four colors from which you will begin to master flesh tones
10 lessons. 6 hours, 2 minutes
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Beginning Portrait Painting picks up from Beginning to Paint: Planar Structures and further advances your skill-set.
From the rudimentary armature that is the ebauche, the facial forms are modeled with succinct brush strokes that are applied with a sympathetic concordance to the underlying anatomical form.
Beginning Portrait Painting
John Singer Sargent’s portrait study of Rosina Ferrera (Capri Woman) is an excellent starting point for the beginning portraitist. It proffers a solid planar structure that is accessible to the beginner’s understanding of facial form.
Here you will learn to draw with the brush, foregoing the restrictions imposed by a preliminary drawing, and to block in the primary light/dark pattern.
From there you will learn how to 'serve it up in the abstract', following Sargent's curriculum of developing the ebauche with three half-tones and constructing the planar forms seeing through the eyes of a sculptor.
12 lessons. 4 hours, 40 minutes
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Woman in a Black Hat introduces you to painting with a sculptural, tactile sensibility. Using brush, knife and fingers you'll develop three-dimensional form that breathes life.
You will be guided through the three stages of painting: the ebauche, the pentimento, and the finire with the additional element of constructing an engaging abstract structural surface (the patina). Oil paint possesses a wondrous materiality.
William Merrit Chase Woman in a Black Hat 1912
William Merritt Chase was a contemporary of John Singer Sargent. Chase's School of Art morphed into The Parsons School of Design, one of the pre-eminent art colleges in the US.
Whereas Beginning Portrait Painting focused on the Ebauche, the initial construction of painting, Woman in a Black Hat takes you significantly further into the passages of Pentimenti where you will learn how to strengthen and refine facial structure while acquiring the language of painting.
Your palette is expanded to nine colors and you'll be introduced to the entire progression of painting a portrait from start to finish while learning how to mix realist flesh tones using color theory and applying your brush strokes with a sympathetic concordance to the underlying anatomical form.
27 lessons. 11 hours, 30 minutes
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Corot's The Greek Girl is a painterly process of distilling the facial forms through a wall of complexity.
Drawing with a loaded brush the arabesque is succinctly struck and the planar forms blocked-in. From there the painting proceeds utilizing a reductive additive/substractive means of applying paint with a sculptural sensibility.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot The Greek Girl, Portrait of Emily Dobigny, 1870
Few artists have managed a one-two punch upon the trajectory of art. First, Corot's landscapes paved the way to Impressionism; second, his figurative paintings had an immense influence on 20th Century art.
Corot's figural works have a sculptural quality. It is as if Corot carved the forms out of stone; they are still, permanent, neither wooden nor stiff. What is seen and immediately felt is the abstract structural surface (the patina) of the paint. Oil paint possesses a wondrous materiality that no other medium even comes close to matching.
The Greek Girl introduces you to the plastic element of painting with a sculptural sensibility.
29 lessons. 11 hours, 30 minutes
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The beginning of a painting often determines whether it will be a success or not. On the one hand the drawing must be accurate and, on the other, you mustn't be so concerned with the drawing that it inhibits the spirit. Technique should be the liberator of compelling expression, not a shackle that suffocates and procures timid and tentative work.
Velazquez : El Nino introduces you to the practice of spotting color/value notes to convincingly build facial form.
Velazquez El Nino
Hombres de placer, men of pleasure, lent a carnivalesque otherworldliness, a crucial counterpoint, to the rigidly codified social structure of the Royal Court. Velázquez' informal portrayals allowed him unfettered reign to paint as he chose to paint. The genius of Velázquez manifested in the 'other'.
Velázquez' treatment of Lezcano's head is breathtaking in the seemingly casual rendering of facial forms, executed with an economy of means achieved by very few painters. Every brush stroke is rendered with a sympathetic correspondence to the underlying anatomical forms.
22 lessons. 9 hours, 4 minutes
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Velazquez Portrait of a Young Girl
Painting pale flesh tones is a challenge for every artist. Start too light and you quickly find yourself boxed into a corner and chalking out.
Portrait of a Young Girl is Velázquez' only portrait of a child who was not a member of the royal family. This informal portrait possesses a beguiling chroma and seemingly effortless brush work.
The practice of copying is not to recreate a painting in exacting verisimilitude but to draw lessons from it and apply those lessons to your own work. Copying is the great leveller and Velázquez will always humble the best amongst us.
To be released mid-April 2026
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You'll be painting from a black & white photograph. Photographs are dissemblers. They lie and distort. The painter's practice is to interpret the photo and render it in the language of painting.
You begin with striking the big shape (the block-in), followed by serving up the initial half-tones in the abstract. Just like John Singer Sargent taught. And then you're out the gate! Building up the paint surface (the abstract structural surface) with a sympathetic concordance to the underlying anatomical form and succinct bravura codas until an engaging, 3-dimensional alla prima portrait emerges that is as fresh as hot biscuits.
ALLA PRIMA!
Alla prima, also known as du premier coup, is a first strike — a painting resolved in a single sitting.
I'm not hide-bound by rules. There is good practice and there are beautiful, compelling paintings. The twain doesn't always meet. That said, alla prima requires both a sound foundation and working strategy.
9 lessons. 3 hours, 33 minutes
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