The Emotive Portrait with Wendy Barratt

About the Workshop & Tutor

Wendy Barratt has been teaching life drawing and portrait drawing and painting for some 27 years. Passionate to encourage development for all levels of experience, Wendy brings a balance of focus between the rigours of technique for traditional representation, and emotive expression.

As the title suggests, we will be encouraged to think about more than just the technicalities of painting a portrait and look at how to get that connection between artist and sitter and also how to get a better understanding of the sitter and what we are trying to say in our painting.

Wendy’s approach as teacher is very much that of letting students develop their own way of looking/seeing and working but equally is understanding that we will want to be shown some of her own approaches and be given a sense perhaps of one way of working/another way of working for those who already have their own.

Wendy will do a live demo each day as well as bringing in examples of both her own work and work of other artists. On day 1 we will be encouraging talking to the model for part of the time whilst drawing to get a deeper sense of who we are studying - which will help inform the emotion of the painting.

Day 1. Drawing the Portrait

This day will all be about drawing using paint. We will look at both the technicalities and the expressive nature of drawing a head with various exercises and poses to get everyone armed up. We will look at working both in line and tone with just a minimum palette - just 1 or 2 colours and white and playing with paint and its textures.

Day 2. The Portrait sketch and starting the final Portrait.

In the morning we will look at how we can simplify the portrait right down to simple slabs of colour and tone and how by playing with their relationships we can gain a sense of atmosphere. Wendy will talk a bit about colour mixing and the tone and temperature of colour.

In the afternoon we will start to plan our final portraits by looking at the work we have already made and making preliminary decisions about the sort of portrait we would each like to make.

The sitters will take their poses, which will go over into day 3 so that students can start their preliminary drawings in paint. We will concentrate on both accuracy in setting up the ‘scaffolding’ of the painting, but also encourage playfulness to add life and vitality.

Day 3. The Portrait

We will concentrate on working through the process of making our portraits. By now we will have gleaned some really useful information about the model, our relationship to the model and what we would like to say in our portrait.

Wendy will be encouraging well observed but also playful and expressive working to discover ways of creating an emotive portrait.

As with all taught sessions, this course is more about learning that can be integrated into practice rather than on getting results and showing that which we can already do. Learning to record the most useful information about our subject, discovering something about seeing the structure of the head. Learning ways of describing. It's more about succumbing to being a student and being open to discourse, intervention, and learning, so we can then make informed choices about what is useful to us and incorporate into regular practice.

What is provided?

All equipment, paper, and materials are provided but feel free to bring any favourites of your own. A selection of teas and coffee, organic milk and plant based milk, plus a selection of treats will also be available.

Terms & Conditions

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Course & Workshop Terms & Conditions

Portrait Gallery