A step-by-step approach to exploring expressive mark-making, character, and confidence in your own style working from a live model

Overview

Move beyond accuracy and explore expressive mark-making, character, and confidence in your own style working from a live model

Course Overview

This course builds on the foundations of portrait drawing and guides towards a more expressive and personal approach to portrait drawing.

Working from a live model, participants will explore mark-making, edge control, composition, and character. The emphasis moves from “getting it right” to developing confidence, fluency, and individuality in drawing.

Teaching Approach

Sessions are structured and allow great space for experimentation and interpretation. Short demonstrations introduce key concepts such as expressive line, variation of edges, and selective detail.

Participants are encouraged to:

take risks in their mark-making

simplify and suggest rather than describe

develop a personal visual language

Individual feedback supports both technical refinement and creative exploration.

What You’ll Learn

You will:

Use line and tone more expressively

Develop confidence with looser, more fluid drawing

Understand how to create focus through edges and contrast

Capture character and presence rather than just likeness

Explore a more personal approach to portraiture

Outcome

By the end of the course, you will have produced a body of more resolved and expressive portrait drawings, with greater confidence in your mark-making and decision-making.

Description supplied by the event organiser.