I recently attended a workshop at the Art Students League with classically trained painter and portraitist Brandon Soloff. The intense workshop gave me a great shove towards painting in oils. I love the fast drying time of acrylics and the challenge of taming watercolor but like the flexibility and the feel of mixing and applying oil paint to canvas. I'm not aiming to become a portraitist for the rest of my days but it is a great discipline and an incredible challenge. I have never actually done a portrait before. I copied detailed photographs of Hollywood heroes when I was a teenager (that were actually pretty darn good!) but I haven't attempted one since and have been concentrating on capturing the gesture of the whole figure in quick sketches at recent life drawing sessions. To do a detailed study of the head from life in five afternoons at the League was quite a revelation to me. My drawing skills won the day. I was able to maintain the strong and pretty accurate drawing throughout each layer of the painting. I think that helped enormously. Full credit to the model though. He has amazing character and an ability to be still and maintain a pose throughout a week. Bravo!
