What makes a painting arresting, beautiful, compelling, what makes certain portraits stand the test of time? Copying a masterpiece is a great way to explore an artwork in detail, noticing things, details, technical aspects that might escape our gaze otherwise.

In this 6 weeks, online course, we will copy a few famous portraits, to better understand the reason of their success, their technique and composition.

We will also paint one or two portraits from photographic reference of a real model, to apply what we learned copying a masterpiece toward the creation of an original painting. For this last exercise, the participant artists can use the reference images I will provide or use their own reference image to create a self-portrait or a portrait of a relative or a friend. I will give you my input and comments to help you develop your artworks.

Materials:

Paint: alizarine crimson, cadmium red medium ultramarine blue, cobalt blue cadmium

• yellow lemon, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, Ultramarine violet, black, white.
• A wooden, plastic, or disposable palette. If you buy a wooden palette, make sure it is treated with a few layers of linseed oil to prevent the untreated wood to soak up the oil from the paint. I can show you how to do this in class, but you’ll need a disposable or plastic palette for the first class.
• A variety of brushes: hog and synthetic will do; Filbert or bright, #2, 6, 8, and 12 will do. You will also need a few round, synthetic brushes, #2 and 4. You can also use the colors that you already have and we will discuss about these materials in class.
• Linseed oil, you can also use Galkid or Liquin. Turpenoid or other low odor solvent.
• Compressed charcoal pencils in hard and medium gradations(B-2B). Good brands are General’s and Wolff’s carbon.
• Rags or paper towels.
• A metal cup for the medium and a palette knife.
• Canvas or canvas boards size 20”by 16”, or so.