PORTRAIT WORKSHOP
Portrait Workshop
Four Day Intensive
EASTER 2026 - April 6,7,8,9
This four day intensive workshop will give you the tools and understanding you need to paint a well constructed portrait.
As well as giving you technical tools and principles, emphasis is on painting how you want to paint - enjoying the process and being free to explore and experiment towards powerful portraits that are as individual to you as they are to the sitter.
I teach a natural, intuitive and expressive approach that you can adapt to develop your own individual style. The course will be comprehensive and fun, with plenty of breaks and discussion about great portraiture past and present.
We begin with a quick look at using photography for portraiture, then you will explore the essential structure and proportions of the head. You will start with a few quick drawings, initially in charcoal but moving into oil paint from day one.
We will look at light and form, tone and colour including colour mixing and understanding warm and cool colours, as well as paint handling and brush marks.
Painting from life has many advantages, and we will be working from models some of the time. However most people most of the time work from photographs and so will we. (Working from photographs has great advantages if you avoid the pitfalls.)
Tea and coffee will be provided. Please bring your own lunch so we can all eat together on the grounds of the studio.
Numbers are limited to a maximum of eight students.
We’ll end with an early celebratory dinner on the final day. (Included.)
DAY 1
To start this morning you will look at how to best use photographs to create powerful portraits.
We will begin with a live model who you will photograph in both natural and artificial light, looking at how best to light and photograph a subject to explore ideas and compositions.
After a tea break we look at the basic structure and proportions of the head, and you make a few quick charcoal drawings from the model to help understand some key concepts and approaches. You will then do one more careful drawing concentrating on structure, proportions of the head and face and placement of the eyes, nose and mouth.
After lunch you will paint a tonal portrait from photo reference using Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Oxide Red or Burnt Sienna.
You will be concentrating on tone and construction, the most important foundations of the portrait. We look at conveying form - understanding form shadows, core shadows and cast shadows, reflected light, half tones, lights and highlights, as well as edges.
DAY 2
We will begin Day 2 with a demonstration of how to mix basic flesh tones.
In the morning we will paint from a new model, using a limited palette of Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light or Vermilion and Ivory Black.
You will concentrate on establishing a very clear arrangement of darks and lights - beginning with a simple statement of large flat areas and working into those to optimise light/dark contrasts and achieve volume and form.
The afternoon will start with a more advanced demonstration of colour mixing with an emphasis on warm and cool colour.
You will then paint a portrait from a photograph, consciously working with your choice of warm/cool colour arrangement. This might be yellow and lilac, red and green, or orange and blue.
You will be using warm/cool contrasts and harmonies to convey depth, form, atmosphere and to explore and experience the elusive magic of nuanced flesh tones in oil.
Day 3
Today you will paint a portrait from the photograph you took on day 1.
You will be encouraged to work freely and expressively, feeling into your own style and brushwork.
Relax, listen to your intuitions, and allow some of the things you have learned over the past few days to make themselves felt in your work.
You will use a palette of Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light or Vermilion, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue.
Day 4
On the final day you will paint a self portrait in the mirror using a full palette (see materials).
MATERIALS
Paint
The course is taught in oils.
There are no colours that are right or wrong on a palette, but there are palettes that are more manageable, more versatile and more likely to assist rather than hinder you in painting a successful portrait.
Essential Colours
Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow or Cadmium Yellow Light, Yellow Ochre, Transparent Oxide Red or Burnt Sienna (these achieve similar ends but I much prefer Transparent Oxide Red), Cadmium Red Light or Vermilion, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black.
Fuller Palette
Add Cadmium Lemon plus Cadmium Yellow rather that just Cadmium Yellow Light or Cadmium Yellow. Also Cerulean Blue.
You can also add Indian Yellow, Payne’s Grey (handy for subtly adjusting flesh tones), Viridian or Terra Verte (a more subtle green in mixes).
Choosing a palette is not purely technical - if you love a colour and it makes you feel good or inspires you, put it on. Some people will gravitate towards a more limited palette, other to a wider array of colours. But generally the fewer colours on your palette, especially to begin with, the better.
Paint Brands
There are many excellent brands of oil paint. Do not buy student grade paint - they have filler instead of pigment and you will battle to get good results.
I use a number of brands including Windsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colours, Old Holland, Art Spectrum, Langridge and Michael Harding. Any of these and any other good brand are fine.
Surfaces
You will need five or six primed canvasses or boards in a size you feel comfortable with. In the interests of time I would suggest smallish - around 30x40cm. If you want to paint larger, bring more paint and bigger brushes, but not too large as space is limited!
Brushes
Good hog’s bristle brushes. (MUST be hog’s bristle.) A couple of number 8 Bright (square in shape and longer than Flats), one or two number 6 and perhaps a 4. A couple of wider brushes (10 or 12) are good to have.
Filberts are also fine, but I do find Brights are more conducive to expressive brush work.
A palette - NOT white - wooden or grey. With a dipper or small containers for solvent and oil. A palette knife is handy.
Mediums
Solvent 75. Refined linseed oil.
Paper towel or cloths to wipe your brushes.
A2 or so drawing paper. White, or toned if you prefer. If toned, bring a white pastel as well as charcoal.
Some vine charcoal. Kneadable eraser.
HOURS AND SETTING
The workshop will run in an air-conditioned studio set in beautiful surrounds.
Hours will be from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm with frequent short breaks and breaks for morning and afternoon coffee or tea as well as a lunch break.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
All tuition, easels, drawing boards, mirrors, models, coffee and tea, final celebratory dinner.
Please bring your lunches so we can all eat together. BYO alcohol for dinner if required.
PRICE
$850. Please contact me to secure your place with a deposit of $200, balance to be paid two weeks before start of workshop. Limited to a maximum of eight students.
rhodes.dale@gmail.com dalerhodespaintings.com instagram dalerhodespaintings
Dale has drawn and painted and taught drawing and painting for many years, both privately and with Byron Community College and Byron School of Art.
He has been hung in the Archibald Salon Des Refuses and has been a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, The Lester Prize and the Northern Rivers Portrait Prize as well as being included in the top 50 of the American Society of Portrait Painters International Portrait Prize.
