Date: Thursdays, September 18-October 16, 2025
Time: 10:30 AM-1:00 PM Pacific Time, 1:30-4:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:30-9:00 PM London Time
Level: All
Medium: Acrylic, gouache, inks, mixed media, watercolour
This five-week course is about bringing portraits to life—not simply as likenesses, but as characters with presence. Inspired by figure drawing, animation, and visual storytelling, we’ll explore how gesture, shape, and design choices can convey not just appearance, but emotion, personality, and story. You’ll experiment with stylization, colour harmonies and inventive compositions—sometimes rooted in observation, sometimes entirely invented. We’ll look at artists like Mary Blair, Alex Katz, Alice Neel, and Modigliani for inspiration, seeing how they distill a figure to its essentials or create archetypes that feel timeless. You’ll be encouraged to take risks, embrace intuition, and let the medium guide you. I’ll demonstrate practical techniques and inventive material approaches to help you work more freely. Through playful studies, expressive mark-making, and layered colour, you’ll find ways to express not just who your subject is—but how they feel.
Whether you’re refining your portrait practice or looking for a fresh creative direction, this course offers space to deepen your craft while staying open to surprise, beauty, and personal expression.
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