Luminous Color 

Painting a portrait can be both exciting and challenging. It requires the acquisition of many different skills that continue to build and harmonize as you grow as a painter. In my years of experience as a portrait painter one of the most difficult and personal skills to develop is a concrete understanding of flesh color and how it relates to the lighting situation. Simply put, having a clear idea of how to mix the colors and get them in proper relationship on the canvas. This workshop will cover the basic structural layout of the head in terms of drawing and proportion, yet spending most of our time with the main concepts of keying the color values of our painting and pushing the limits of color diversity with our flesh tones. Then with more of an improvisational sense of brushstrokes and paint application we will work up the painting in a more painterly approach.

There will be periodic lectures on given topics, such as many different Fleshtone concepts and portrait design, and also museum visits, talking about the history of painting, and the innovations of specific painters like Caravaggio and Velazquez.

The Main topics we will look at:

• Structural Drawing Concepts for the Portrait

• Charcoal Technique

• The Anatomy of Light and Color

• Keying Color Values

• Flesh Palette Setup

• Color Diversity in Flesh Tone

• Brushstroke Diversity