Portrait workshop in Grantchester

Yesterday, I ran my first Portrait workshop in Grantchester, near Cambridge. I am pleased to say it was both successful and enjoyable. Ten students attended from various art clubs and societies bringing a whole range of skills and techniques . Some worked in oils, others in acrylic, watercolour or pastel producing a huge variety of work.


I began by talking about the basics. How to draw a head and get a likeness. I explained about proportion and tone before moving on to do two 20 minute practical demonstrations. The idea was to show a couple of different approaches to painting a portrait in oils. The first was a fairly traditional method establishing the drawing first ( on this occasion in paint.) before moving on to add the colour.




Here the canvas has been pre-stained with raw umber. The drawing was done with diluted burnt sienna. As I do this, I am measuring proportions , angles and running verticals and horizontals to fix the features. Only when happy that everything is in the right place would I begin to add colour. It is a safe approach.

My second quick demonstration was the high risk method. No preliminary drawing . Straight in with the palette knife going for colour and large tonal masses. My audience was fairly stunned at the initial, apparently, child-like daubs. I then move on to applying thick paint with brushes. Rich, juicy impasto. Some wonderful accidental effects on which I try to capitalize. Now is the time I start to panic. Will anything emerge from this chaos? Will this be my Waterloo? Time to impose a certain control, to begin to position features and establish a likeness. To my relief, a human face gradually begins to emerge. I have now managed to capture my audience. I am encouraged by their responses and by the excitement that is being engendered by the process.


I should hastily add that neither of my 25 minute demos did justice to the model, poor girl!


At the beginning of this blog, I indicated the range of students attending. Below. I show a few samples of the work they produced.











As is clear from these few paintings, none of them were painting "in the style of" John Glover. Nothing is more depressing than to see a group of students slavishly copying /imitating the tutor and my aim is to encourage everyone to develop their own "vision."



I will be running the following workshops in Grantchester.

Saturday 12 February. Life Drawing/Painting

Saturday 12th March. Portrait

For full details e-mail john@gloverart.co.uk or tel. 01284 810 460

Another successful portrait workshop

Last Sunday, I held another portrait day workshop. I am pleased to say it was a great success with students coming from all around Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.
After an initial warm up session, people set to work in the medium of their own choice, from charcoal or pencil to watercolour, pastel and oils.




Our model, Flo, the daughter of a friend, was superb. For the whole day, she sat like a rock, barely batting an eyelid. What a relief from those models who constantly twitch, let their eyes or their head wander. Or even fall asleep!





On the day, my function was merely to advise and offer comment, as well as do the odd practical demonstration.

Prior to this, however, I had the pleasure of doing a pastel portrait of Flo.


This portait was done with a combination of hard and soft pastels as well as conte chalk, particularly useful in capturing the delicacy of her hair.

Bury St Edmunds Art Society

On Thursday evening I gave a portrait demonstration to the Bury St. Edmunds Art Society. Over 60 people turned up for the event and it turned out to be a most enjoyable occasion.
I have done quite a few demonstrations for them over the last few years, usually in oils. This time, however, a watercolour portrait was requested. As I have said in previous blogs this is the most demanding medium and it is rather like walking a tightrope without a safety net.
As is usually the case there were few volunteers to sit as the model so in the end I managed to "persuade" George who has attended a few of my classes and whom I know fairly well.
I began by showing a few samples of my work, some quick watercolour studies and a couple of finished pieces. I then demonstrated how to construct the head , looking at proportions, tone and the various individual features. Thereafter, I set to work on the painting, without any preliminary drawing whatsoever and using a combination of wet into wet and dry brush technique. Below is the portrait of George I produced.




I am pleased to say the audience was lively and enthusiastic. They asked numerous questions and a good banter took place. At times, however, I did begin to feel I was turning into my fellow compatriot, Billy Connolly!
The Bury Art Society is holding its Annual Exhibition at the Edmund gallery, Angel Hill, Bury St. Edmunds from 24th June -7th July.

How to create a charcoal portrait of a child

The materials I will be using are thin sticks of willow charcoal, charcoal pencils, black conte crayon, a putty rubber, cotton buds, torchons and a smooth cloth . I am working on pre-soaked and stretched Sanders watercolour paper (140 gms.) As watercolour papers go this is fairly smooth, but it has enough tooth to hold the charcoal powder.


Using the willow charcoal, I quickly rough in the basic shape of the head and position of the various features. Nothing is as yet fixed in stone. Willow charcoal can easily be dusted off and amendments made.


As I am fairly happy with the beginnings of a likeness, I start to strengthen the details and tones of eyes and mouth. This is done with a charcoal pencil ( medium). I also work on building up the shadows. I scrub the willow charcoal over the area and then soften with fingers, torchons or cloth.


I now pay attention to the background , blocking it in with compressed charcoal and charcoal
pencils (dark) The hair is begun.



From here it is a matter of simply refining the detail. To get the precision I want, in the eyes for instance, I use a sharpened conte crayon. But you have to be certain it is in the right place, for conte is a very difficult material to erase! I build layer upon layer to get the depth of shadow I want. On top of the initial willow charcoal, I use the charcoal pencils , stroking them in very gently and then smoothly blending with torchons or cotton buds. A mahl stick is another useful implement as I have often absentmindedly lent my hand upon a drawing and erased or smudged large areas. I also on occasions mask off the areas of the drawing I am not working on.




The finished drawing.




Charcoal is a particularly lovely medium for drawing children. It allows for both delicacy and detail.

Watercolour Portrait Workshop

Last Sunday, I conducted a watercolour portrait workshop for the Society of East Anglian Watercolourists, of which I am also a member.
The day ran from 10-4 and consisted of me giving a general talk on portraits-- how to construct the head, tone and proportion. Thereafter, I did a painting demonstration. As always it was an exciting challenge. I worked wet into wet without any preliminary drawing. A high risk strategy in watercolour. But as the demonstration was only to last an hour, I did not have the luxury of being able to plan and draw carefully.
It certainly leads to an adrenalin rush and certain practical problems. So that the audience can see what you are doing, the board has to be near vertical. Not ideal , as you watch an eye or a nose run down and off the bottom of the page! Below is the result after an hour.


Leila.

The rest of the day was spent with the group working from the model, and me going around offering, hopefully, useful advice. At the end, students were asked to display their work for me and others to make comments and suggestions. All in all it was a most enjoyable day.



This workshop was held in Barrow village hall, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. I have 3 more planned there over the next few months. Details of these will be posted shortly both on the blog and website.