Introduction to Portraiture, Autumn Term 2025
with John Murphy-Woolford
Do you want to master the art of portraiture? Whether you're a beginner who wants to achieve a likeness or an intermediate artist looking to make your work truly three-dimensional, this 12-week program is designed for you.
Autumn Term 2025 Course Dates
18, 25 September
2, 9, 16 23 October
(30 October = Half Term)
6, 13, 20, 27 November
4, 11 December
What this course covers
We'll systematically build your skills, focusing on simple, effective approaches that will elevate your work and help you create convincing portraits. Using A4 images of iconic art history masterpieces as our guide, you'll learn to confidently use line, tone, colour, and composition.
This course is structured to provide a strong foundation, yet it's also wonderfully flexible. Want to focus solely on charcoal drawings all term? Go for it! Prefer to progress from pencil to charcoal, then monochrome underpainting, and finally full colour? That's great too! You'll then have the opportunity to complete your own portrait project with dedicated tutor guidance.
Don't be intimidated by portraiture. It's a skill that's accessible to anyone with a willingness to observe and learn. This course provides the confidence and tools you need to create compelling portraits from both source material and eventually, a live model.
Course Outline
1. The Use of Line
Understanding and interpreting images. Line blocking in. Using straight lines. Drawing from big ideas to small ideas.
Materials: Pencils, charcoal, eraser, paper.
2. Structure
The planes of the face. Skull structure.
Materials: Pencils, charcoal, eraser, paper.
3. Tone 1
Tone values and relationships.
Materials: Willow charcoal, eraser.
4. Tone 2
Three tone studies, tone addition and subtraction drawings.
Materials: Willow charcoal, eraser, chalk, white conte pastel
5. Monochrome Underpainting 1
We learn how to use paint to control tone and produce a monochrome painting.
Materials: Burnt umber oil paint, low odour solvent, brushes, oil / acrylic paper and palette. Cleanup rags.
6. Monochrome Underpainting 2
In this class we will add black and white to extend our tone range.
Materials: Burnt umber, lamp black and titanium white oil paint, low odour solvent, brushes, oil / acrylic paper and palette. Cleanup rags.
7. Mixing the Zorn Palette
We learn how to mix a wide variety of colours from the Zorn palette and start to use colour creatively.
Materials: Lamp black, yellow ochre, cadmium red, titanium white oil paint, low odour solvent, brushes, oil / acrylic paper and palette. Cleanup rags.
8. Master copies and cast drawing/painting
Time for your own personal project / master copy / cast drawing and painting.
Materials: Materials suitable for your project, reference material to copy.
