Portrait painting with Martin Brooks

I  don’t do a lot of portrait painting.

As a member of Salcombe Art Club, I attend watercolour and acrylic classes on a weekly basis, a term at a time. On top of that, there are often specialist workshops – life drawing and portrait painting – and I sign up for these too.

 

2018 Portrait class with Martin Brooks

Last year, I produced this portrait at a Martin Brooks workshop.

I know it’s not brilliant but I can honestly say I caught a likeness of the model and am pleased with my efforts.

Aware though that I had much to learn, this year, I signed up for two more workshops with Martin Brooks.

• Life drawing last weekend
• Portrait painting this weekend

I attend as many Life Drawing classes as I can – they are always immensely helpful in keeping your hand and eye ‘in’.

 

2019 Portrait class with Martin Brooks

As for the portrait paintings I completed this weekend … well, judge for yourself. This was painted on Saturday.

The model for Sunday gave me more problems. This is the morning study.

Martin kindly helped me with positioning of parts of the face: the ears, the eyebrows etc.

Above, the top sketch  is Martin’s; the other is mine, and I can see how my proportions went awry.

However, I think I am improving … what do you think?

How can you join Salcombe Art Club?

There are three categories of membership.

• Lay members may take part in workshops, courses, and social activities and generally assist in supporting the club but may not exhibit.
• Associate members may take part in most club activities including exhibiting in the Little Studio section (but not the main gallery) of the Annual Summer Exhibition. Associate members also have voting rights at the annual AGM.
• Full members may take part in all club activities and exhibit their works in the Annual Summer Exhibition when they are required to carry out their share of stewarding duties. Full members also have voting rights at the annual AGM.

The first step is to enroll as a lay member; it only costs £12 per annum. After that, there is an annual selection process to become an associate member or a full member. For full details, check the How to Join page on the SAC website.