This beginner to intermediate course will approach portraiture from a sculptural standpoint, highlighting the basic bony landmarks of the face and skull and using color/value to define major planes and movements of each feature. Moving from large, simple shapes of the face under light, students will transition their thinking from flat abstraction into three-dimensional form. It focuses on working alla prima, resolving issues around transitioning from drawing to painting, developing speed, proficiency, and adaptability to a range of lighting conditions in service of the development of an independent artistic practice. Students will learn the basic structure and artistic anatomy of the head/face, simplifying form to planes, and alla prima techniques for portrait painting.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: David Heshmatpour
Cost: $275
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

The workshop will run for two full days. Our interest is whether two distinct pictorial genres, the portrait and the nude figure, can challenge each other and make each more interesting. The expressive overlap in portraiture and figure painting has been a central concern in my work for over forty years. The class will be open to any painting medium, oil, acrylic, pastel, opaque watercolor, but the emphasis of each experience will be in pushing the participants’ efforts through changes and revision which may include the model’s change of state from nude to clothed or vice versa. My interest is in “likeness” which is as much involved with gesture, proportion, and spatial context as the disposition of features, complexion, and light.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Scott Noel
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Learn the techniques and tools of figure sculpture through demonstration and hands-on sculpting from the model. Explore anatomy, proportion, gesture, and design through the versatility of clay. Personal expression will be emphasized though representational and abstract approaches. Open to all levels and perfect for beginners. Tuition includes a $35 models fee.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Colleen O'Donnell
Cost: $230
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Don't miss this opportunity to draw the figure model with guidance from noted figurative artist Carolyn Pyfrom in this all-day intensive workshop! Learn representational life drawing strategies to marry gestural drawing approaches of rhythm, continuity and volume to "analytical" ones, highlighting the ways in which good gesture and good proportions support each other. The mornings will focus on short-pose gesture drawing with poses gradually extending to 20 minutes long. The afternoon sessions will feature one long pose allowing for the development of values and forms. Ideal for artists at any level of practice.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Carolyn Pyfrom
Cost: $395
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Because drapery captures gravity, weight and movement, it does a great deal of the work in making a convincing dynamic composition. Drapery can be manipulated and altered in ways that bodies can never be and yet define the forms of the body underneath. As it covers it also reveals. Fabric retains the gesture of movement, giving life to static forms. Changes of color on each turning plane are subtle, beautiful, and completely dependent on fabric texture. This gives tactile specificity for the sense of touch. Fabric suggests content, drama. Working from visual perception and studying light relationships we will use both still life and figure to simplify and extract the essentials of form and gesture for a unified and dramatic whole.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Maggie Siner
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553