What fun we had with these impressionist portraits. After getting over the initial nerves at painting a couple of portraits in a 2.5 hour session, let alone portraits from the great impressionists, the paint was flowing and faces started to appear.
This was a great exercise in a number of things. Firstly, practicing portraits without getting too fussed over detail - the reference material was loose and free so we had to be loose and free. Secondly, use of colour - not always the colours we'd necessarily use for portraits. Oh, and did I mention that we were using a new medium? We painted these in oils - this was a first for many of us and, painting as we were all in one sitting without any drying time, we had to be careful in the paint application - not too easy for those of us who like to fiddle!
All in all I think everyone did very well. I'm fascinated that, despite the fact we were using famous portraits as references and it's clear from each portrait which painting we were copying, peoples own personal style still showed through - fantastic!
We had a couple of weeks doing these so there are quite a few - enjoy!
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