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September 12 - October 17, 2026 (6 weeks)
Live online on Saturdays, 10:00am-1:00pm Eastern Standard Time (New York time)
The Zoom link will be provided. Recordings are available to registrants, so attending the live sessions is not required. Participants are invited to email progress each week by 12:00pm EST (New York time) on Tuesdays for feedback, which is sent to the class as a mid-week video.
Course description:
This six-week portrait painting course will explore the remarkable range of color found within flesh, with particular attention to how complexion, light, environment, and surrounding color influence the way skin is perceived and painted.
Students will work from a variety of subjects representing different flesh tones from around the world, studying the subtle shifts that occur between lighter, medium, and darker complexions. Rather than approaching flesh tone as a fixed formula, the class will focus on understanding skin as a complex arrangement of warm and cool color relationships that continually change according to the chromatic atmosphere surrounding the sitter.
The course will be organized around three two-week portrait paintings, allowing students enough time to develop each study beyond a quick exercise while still experiencing three distinctly different color situations. Each painting will present a new combination of complexion, lighting, and atmospheric color, encouraging students to experiment with temperature, saturation, value, reflected light, and color harmony.
Throughout the course, demonstrations and discussion will address color mixing for a broad range of complexions, organizing warm and cool relationships within the face, maintaining luminosity in both light and dark flesh tones, and integrating the figure into a surrounding color environment. Particular attention will be given to how background color, ambient light, and reflected color can dramatically alter the appearance and emotional character of flesh.