Composing the Portrait Painting with Tom Van de Wouwer (Aug 2024)

The aim for students during this workshop is to develop painted portrait studies in oil from observation.

Fast and broad colour studies in alla prima technique will serve to lay a foundation for your paintings in the first day. Tom will be guiding students through his process via extended demos, before working with you to apply these techniques into your own portraits.

As you move towards a more resolved painting in the following days, the aim is for an approach that allows for changing pictorial interest and shifting focus in the painting. For this, we will examine flat shape design, perspective basics, observational colour theory, tonal structure, form analysis and more!

All of these ideas will be explained through visual demonstrations as well as in-depth individual feedback. Tom spends extended time demoing the techniques, giving you the opportunity to watch and ask any questions.

One-on-one feedback will help you get to grips with the techniques demonstrated. Tom spends extended time with each individual student, giving you the opportunity to get in depth feedback on your work, colour design and composition. Although the major emphasis of this workshop is on developing a balance between optical perception and following the direction of where a painting goes, all material and technical questions can be addressed.

Finally, Tom will sometimes work alongside the participants, showing how the painting develops in real time.

This workshop is suitable for beginners to advanced, although you will get more out of the workshop if you are already familiar with oils and would like to get to grips with colour choices.

Who is the tutor?
Tom Van de Wouwer is an artist born in Kapellen, Belgium. He has exhibited his work in Belgium, U.K. and the U.S.A. and his work is collected internationally. 

His work has largely focused on people and portraits, and more recently has evolved to explore the human condition through a contemporary painter’s visual and historical language. Click here for his website.

How many students will there be?
There is a maximum of 12 participants and the tutor will customise the course according to your individual needs.

If you have any questions, please see our frequently asked questions or contact us.

Click here for the materials list for this course.