Portrait Study
Whether copying a master like Zorn or painting your own subject, portraiture should progress from the general to the specific.
Construct with flat planes—establish the large planes first, and deal with the likeness later.
Keep the palette simple to start. Four or five colors are suggested.
Choose angles over contours, and keep everything loose to allow for easy corrections.
Make sure the head sits comfortably on the neck and shoulders, and continually relate them to one another.
Don’t be discouraged if your start feels awkward. At this stage, your portrait is under construction—beauty and expression can wait.
For June 24 2026
Try One of Three
Starting Approaches
For next week, choose one of the three starting approaches shown here.
You do not need to use all three and the subject is up to you. Pick the method that feels most useful, natural, or challenging for your current work.
The goal is to practice beginning a painting with speed and flexibility, without tightening too soon.
Whichever method you choose, keep the start open and adjustable. Think of the block-in as a way to find your way into the painting, not as something that needs to be perfect right away.
Class Notes, June 10 2026
Clean vs. Lush Color
Clean
- Clear, direct, organized
- Reads well from across the room
- Variation minimal and subtle
Reminder: Clean color has distance power.
Risk: Can become cold or sterile.
Lush
- Rich, varied, layered
- Beautiful up close
- Small temperature shifts keep it luminous
Reminder: Lush color has surface power.
Risk: Can become muddy or out of focus.
The Balance
- Far away: clear structure
- Up close: interesting color and touch
- Don’t push either too far
Reminder: Strong from a distance, alive up close.
Finding the focus
- Try a few possible areas
- One may begin to “stick”
- Follow the one that holds your attention
Reminder: The first area that sticks is often the right one.
For June 10, 2026
Copying a Favorite Artist–
Study One Passage
For next week, choose one specific area from a painting by an artist you admire and make a study of that passage.
Give your full attention to, say, a fold of fabric, a hand, a shadow shape, a group of brushstrokes, a corner of a still life–anything you find interesting.
In class, details from Sargent’s El Jaleo — the dancer’s skirt — is an example of how much can be learned from one concentrated passage.
Sargent rendered the skirt with broad shapes of light and dark, warm and cool notes, and a few decisive accents.
Some areas are sharp and clear; others dissolve.
Studying art in sections lets you see the decisions: what was simplified, what was emphasized, and where suggestion is more powerful than detail.
If you're fairly new to painting, choose something simple like a Cezanne or a Morandi.
The goal isn't to make a perfect copy. The goal is to use that passage as reference that teaches you something specific.
Videos will be uploaded over the weekend.
Two Goals in Painting
Painters are sometimes pulled in two directions.
On one hand, there’s the desire to improve.
On the other, there’s the desire to make something beautiful.
These two goals don’t always cooperate.
Improving requires risk—trying the unfamiliar, losing control a bit, and often not liking the result.
It can feel clumsy, discouraging.
But making strong, beautiful work often comes from working within what we already know—staying in familiar territory, where we feel confident.
The key is understanding the tension.
If every painting is meant to be “good,” growth slows.
If every painting is an experiment, it’s hard to build momentum.
A healthy practice makes room for both.
Over time, these two paths support each other.
Don’t judge your work too quickly.
Ask instead: What was this piece for?