The 6-month program is carefully designed to take you from the essentials to fully developed, realist portraits. You’ll start with a strong foundation in classical rules and principles, progressing to mastering composition, color, and technique. Along the way, you’ll learn how to create powerful, emotionally resonant portraits with wide appeal.
You’ll also explore creating textured grounds and experiment with mixed media to craft intricate, beautiful backgrounds. By the end of the course, you’ll have the skills to confidently navigate the entire creative process—from brainstorming your ideas to bringing them to life in large-scale, stunning works.
Here's a small selection of the content:
Learn head anatomy and classical techniques to create realistic drawings. Includes 2 in-depth demos and lectures (3+ hours of content).
Learn an effective and simple method to render any skin tone for any lighting condition: white, olive, brown, black. (5 in-depth demos & lectures)
Take your portrait painting to the next level. Apply your realistic skills to create powerful portraits on beautiful, textured grounds (2 full in-depth demos + lectures, 3h+ content)
Explore techniques to create abstract grounds and backgrounds in a variety of mixed media including gold leaf.
Master the creative process from start to finish: from brainstorming ideas to scaling up sketches and studies. End the program by creating a full-scale abstract-figurative painting ready to sell! (plenty of in-depth demos & references, 6h+)
Whether realistic or expressive, learn how to simplify and render hair of any colour and type!
Push the boundaries of traditional Realist Portraiture! Learn how to mount Paper on canvas and distressed grounds to use for your Portraits (4h+ in-depth demos )
Go in-depth and apply realist skills with practical, bite-sized demos on eyes, mouth, nose, and hands. (Plenty of demos, 4+ hours of content)
Stay connected, share your work, and enter the prize giveaway within our dedicated artist community.
BROWSE THE FULL CONTENT :
- Chapter Overview (0:55)
- An Effective Method to Mix Any Skin Colour (3:41)
- Color Mixing Demo: How to Organise your Palette (11:14)
- Color Mixing Demo: Focus on the White/Pale Skin (15:21)
- Color Mixing Demo: Focus on the Olive/Light Brown Skin (13:31)
- Colour Mixing Demo: Focus on the Dark/Black Skin (11:04)
- Concluding Notes (1:15)
- PRACTICE AT HOME: creative exercises and assignment
- A Method to Unleash Creativity (1:49)
- Priming Your Surfaces (2:43)
- Creating an Abstract Ground for a Medium Painting (1:28)
- Toning & Applying Gold Leaf (4:11)
- Spray Painting, Stencilling & Layering (9:15)
- Tips and Best Practices to Keep Inspired! (3:55)
- PRACTICE AT HOME: creative exercises and assignment
- Overview of the lesson (1:12)
- Before We Start: Surface, Composition & Transferring Our Drawings (11:01)
- Before We Start: Creating a Color Study using the ZORN Palette (35:54)
- Start Painting: Blocking-in (28:57)
- Phase Two: Get the Likeness Right (29:09)
- Pushing the Portrait Further: Finer Details and Rendering (28:58)
- Finishing Touches: Adding an Abstract Background & Varnishing Your Work (21:28)
- APPENDIX: A Review of Oil Paint MEDIUMS (8:00)
- PRACTICE AT HOME: creative exercises and assignment
- Before We Start: Preliminary Thoughts on Composition (3:54)
- Before We Start: Mixing Skin Tones for Light Brown/Olive Complexion (17:51)
- Let's Start Painting: Blocking-in (32:36)
- Painting Phase Two: Modelling (51:55)
- Painting Phase III: From Modelling to Rendering (71:33)
- Painting Phase 4: Chest, Dress, Hair (37:46)
- Final touches & Backgrounds (6:08)
- PRACTICE AT HOME: creative exercises and assignment
- Chapter Overview
- An Insider’s View of My Creative Process
- Plan Your Process: Brainstorming, Doodling, Sourcing References and Sketching
- Demo I: Sketch Using Images and Imagination
- Demo II: Transform Your Sketches Into Small Painting Studies
- Demo III: Scale Up Your Studies Into A Large Abstract-Figurative Painting
- PRACTICE AT HOME: creative exercises and assignment
Want to try out a shorter Program ? Here your options:
Ready for more content and One-on-One coaching? Check these options:
