Portrait Study

Figure Study No. 212 | Aaron Miller | 2011 | original for sale

I got to hang out at Tim Rees’ studio the other day to do some painting. We had about 4 hours and I was able to spend more time painting from life than I have in many years. Some of the cool things about this situation that anyone can do wanting to study more and save money is to paint your friends. And the best ones can be the ones that want to paint too, just take turns.

What this does is give you quite a few advantages to going to a group workshop, although those are always recommended.

Time:
The first advantage is time; you can paint for as long or as little as you have time for on your schedule. And if it’s on the “more” side that’s where the advantage really kicks in.

Proximity:
Get in there! You now have the opportunity get up close. Close means you can see things you usually can’t from across a room, like the eyes. no reason not to have your model just a few feet away. And at many workshops you just don’t have that opportunity if there are 20-30 people there, only a few people get the “good spots”. And even those are never as close as you want to get.

Lighting and Pose:
It’s up to you and your friends. You can try natural through the window, or paint outside. Whatever the set up and equipment it’s now under your direction. Same with the pose.

Money:
Oh yeah, you don’t have to pay your buddy whom you’ll probably be posing for as well. That’s the whole point! Or you can split the cost of a professional figure model. Just don’t be weird and freak out the model, the community is small and word spreads fast. Or weirder than we artists already are.

Speaking of workshops, my Figurative Illustration Workshop is coming up soon! (9/30)
The costuming will be centered around pattern. And I have no problem with people “getting in there” to draw or paint. One advantage my workshop has over the above is that it can be quite expensive to rent costumes.

Sausage Links!
Tim Rees
Figurative Illustration Workshop