SUNDAY WORKSHOP January 18th 2026: Working from a well-known portrait painting.

Clare Shepherd
4 minutes ago
2 min read

In this workshop my students will choose a head-portrait by a well known painter and have the chance to study it closely. They'll make a working sketch and then, in the medium of their choice, create their own version of the painting.

There are so many great portrait paintings to be studied. As you can see, I have chosen a painting by Duncan Grant of Vanessa Bell with whom he lived at Charleston (despite her being married to Clive Bell).

The Duncan Grant painting is an oil painting, but I have chosen to use watercolour and colour pencil which means my version will have a different ‘feel’ to it. This is the way I’d like you to think – that you’re being influenced by a painting but making your own version.

I’d like you to choose a head portrait by a well-known artist. I’ll bring lots of books with examples that you can work from in case you can’t find one.

When you’re choosing the painting from which you’ll work, think about what you might like – options could be forward facing face, profile face, loosely painted, abstract (Picasso?!), detailed (Holbein?), colourful, monotone etc.

You’ll need drawing things (pencils, sketch book etc) to make a ‘working’ sketch. This will help to familiarise you with your chosen subject.

You’ll need also to bring the medium in which you choose to work, and it absolutely doesn’t need to be the same medium as the original painting.

Firstly, you’ll make a working sketch which can be rapid or more in depth. It’s in the sketch that you make your drawn ‘notes’ about the subject, so it isn’t a sketch for its own inherent beauty, it’s a sketch to get to know your subject, although an intensively worked sketch could become the final piece.

Then you’ll work in the medium of your choice. If it’s watercolour, remember to work loosely with your early layers knowing that your later layers of paint can make the more definite statements. You can mix your media, making negotiation and re-negotiation very available!