Portraiture workshops

In February I had taken a free portrait drawing workshop from Raw Umber Studios and greatly enjoyed it. I blogged about it here. A few friends had also taken the workshop at the same time and we posted (via whatsapp) pictures to each other, after which we decided we would do something similar again. With some simple google research I found that there were various drawing workshops available online and even Raw Umber Studios had its own YouTube channel where they posted some previous portrait drawing workshops. So another session was planned with my friends, where we all watched the same video. Although the format was exactly the same, with workshop facilitation by instructor Lizet Dingemans, there was not the livestream capability of having real-time questions answered. This, however, was not a huge deterrent for any of us, as we weren't availing of the question and answer facility anyway. We decided on the model "Heather" and got to work. As with the previous workshop, there were three "poses" (well-lit photographs) starting with a basic ten minute pose.

I had previously found that the charcoal I was using was harder than I wanted, so I simply used a black pastel, which was easy to smudge. This is the twenty minute pose.

For the thirty minute pose I decided to use black and white conté on grey paper.

At the end of March I found out that another free workshop was available (I have since discovered that during the pandemic Raw Umber is providing a monthly free workshop) and the group of us signed up for it again. I decided that working on the flat table led to a few foreshortening difficulties for me, so I decided to set up my easel. This is my workshop set-up in the kitchen.

The model "Arnie" had a great head of hair, dreadlocks pulled back in the ten minute pose, so I decided to work horizontally.

I seem to enjoy the shorter poses the best. This is another ten minute pose, "Raveena", which was part of a YouTube recording that I availed of recently. There will be another free workshop at the end of the month, which I plan to sign up for. The workshops for me are just an excuse to "get together" with friends and enjoy a Sunday afternoon doing something that we all like doing.