This workshop offers an introduction to oil painting portraiture, guiding participants through the essential principles of painting the human face. Through a combination of classical and nuanced techniques, participants will learn the fundamentals of capturing a likeness, expression and subtle balance between structure and emotion in portraiture. Working from a photograph in a step-by-step approach, the workshop investigates techniques such as underpainting, drawing up/ gridding, blocking in, with practical demonstrations on skin tone mixing and discussions on temperature, form and light.
With guidance and one on one feedback, participants will then find their own brush style in a loose, painterly balance between intuition, precision and playfulness.
Informative to both beginners and more advanced painters, the aim is to gain both knowledge and confidence in portraiture painting in a friendly community atmosphere!
Light refreshments provided (tea, coffee, snacks).
This is a two day workshop (10am - 4.30pm both days). Attendees need only purchase a single ticket, and are expected to attend on both Saturday 27th June and Sunday 28th June.
Bookings: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/1987590823658?aff=oddtdtcreator
About the Artist
Mel Brown (she/her) is a visual artist and Arts Educator, practising on Kaurna Country (Tarndanya/Adelaide Plains). Since 2011 she has taught both Painting and Drawing at Adelaide Central School of Art. She also has facilitated numerous, drawing and painting workshops in portraiture, and life drawing including the Art Gallery of South Australia, community and regional galleries.
Primarily a realist figurative painter she presents the viewer with alternative ways of experiencing the body, to speak of the seemingly familiar, yet unsteady states of being. “I like to play with visual codes in work that rides the boundaries of perception, identity, and gender, finding possibilities in uncertain spaces”.
Mel received her Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours) at Adelaide Central School of Art in 2008. She received several scholarships and was the recipient of the Alumni Award in recognition of her outstanding achievement in her studies. In 2010 also received the golden key for studies in Diploma of Education (Double Art). More recently, she was a finalist in the Kennedy Art prize 2024, won 2013 Kennedy People’s Choice Art Prize 2013, the Star Portrait Prize Loretto Spring Art Show 2013 and the Cliftons Art prize 2008. Mel works have been curated in solo and group shows including Gallery M, Praxis Artspace, BMG Art Gallery, the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) festival and has received corporate and private commissions both nationally and internationally.