This continued to be an informative and valuable course. I found the instruction and the feedback to be excellent.
Week 4 was some work on 2 value heads:
Then some work on Eyes in week 5:
LoveLifeDrawing III
Category pencil
Love Life Drawing I
At a local Life Drawing lesson in the Spring the instructor had materials from LoveLifeDrawing.com.
I was impressed with the straight-forward breakdown of difficult concepts (how to draw a live figure), so I looked at the website and worked on the ‘Fresh Eyes Challenge’.
This Fall, I saw LoveLifeDrawing was offering a new Portrait Course. This fit with my goals, so I joined the ‘study group’. This costs a monthly fee that pays for all courses as long as you are a member. The teacher is called Kenzo and he’s in the UK.
It was a great course! The subject was broken down into manageable steps, and the site has lots of opportunity for sharing your work and progress, plus an excellent system for receiving video feedback once a week. The course was on live Zoom calls, with real-time questions encouraged.
Two or three times a month there is a live ‘Co-drawing’ session for 90 minutes each time. We all draw 5 minute and 15 minute poses/portraits and then can hold up our work for immediate feedback.
Portrait Society Conference 2024 #2
One of the great aspects of the Portrait Society Conference is the opportunity to draw from life—the wonderful models they engage for the conference time.
The first drawing here was from a breakout session (workshop) which I had chosen. The model was dressed and posed very similarly to a drawing by John Singer Sargent. We also had a copy of that drawing to refer to.
The other two drawings were from an evening open studio. There were three models present, and during the 3 hours of the studio we could choose one, or all three. Several faculty were present, to give advice when needed.
All there drawings are on gray-toned sketch paper.
I also loved watching professional artists paint people from life, receiving critiques from professional artists on my own paintings, learning some very helpful and interesting information from the talks and lectures, and meeting up with faculty and attendees that I’ve met at the previous conferences.
Mastering Composition Course 2023
I decided my focus learning area for this year would be composition. When I saw this course advertised by Ian Roberts I thought it would be a good fit. I have had his book for many years and often referred to it, and also receive his monthly mini-instruction videos.
The 6-week course ran from January-March, and was followed by a 30-day Challenge up til April 6.
It consists of a weekly live Zoom instruction session, 2 or 3 assignments during the following week with accompanying instruction videos and a Buddy system for critiques. I’ve found them all to be very beneficial.
marymayhewart 