Lessons Archive

In this lesson I will walk you through the process of laying in a head drawing from a piece of photo reference. I will only take it up to about half way at this stage in your development. Remember the old saying, Do enough starts and the finishes will take care of themselves.

Now, using the same model as the front pose, we will work on laying in the muscular figure in profile.

In this lesson we will look at the body broken down into various planes. It is simpler than a fully rendered male figure, but give this one some time to digest. Planes will become the basis of clearly turning form in drawing, and ultimately in painting as well.

In this part II lesson take note of how Jeff layers the paint, as well as the look of his brushmanship. Here the surface is left with a painterly look. You may wish to tighten it up a bit in your own painting. Ultimately these choices will form the basis of your style as an artist.

In this last video Jeff will deliberately leave one side “tiled” and the other blended so you can see the difference between the two. Good luck, and see you in the next phase soon!

Our focus in this lesson is again becoming familiar with the major angles from both male and female using various monochrome palettes. Your focus should be securing a solid grasp of tackling the human figure in oils.

In this part of the lesson, Jeff continues with the study from part 1 and brings it up to a finish.

In this lesson you are introduced to the Burnt Umber and White palette. The goal is to learn how to push the paint around a bit, and get used to more direct painting.

In this lesson we will focus on distilling down the complex forms of the body into its most rudimentary shapes and concepts.

In this video lesson we will learn to appreciate the black-sheep of the features: the ear. Removed from the other features, and one of the most complex, it is often considered by artists to be the second most challenging area of portraiture next to the eyes.

This exercise will take on a male back. This should be getting a bit more comfortable, as by now you are probably familiarizing yourself with the process. If not, don't fear. We will be repeating the same ideas in all of the phase I exercises. Here we will begin by painting a lean male figure from a back pose, with direct lighting.

Jeff provides some closing thoughts on the second phase of gouache.

In this continuation video we will start to manipulate the edges, continue to finesse our shapes, and nail the values of the skull in front view.

We will now switch palettes to the Phthalo Blue, Ivory Black and Titanium White monochrome palette. The straight on view is often considered the most difficult, but the palette has been designed to gradually introduce you to the complexity of painting. Join Jeff as he walks you through the skull from this position.

Her we will explore the canons of measurement used throughout history to properly draw the human form and some of the key head measurements for the male and female form.

In this continuation video Jeff shows how to take this pose up to a nice finish. Sit back and enjoy, because you will be in the hot seat soon enough.

In this lesson we will revisit a simple pick-out. He couldn’t resist putting at least one of these in this phase!

Now that we have begun to cover the figure we will slow down, and Jeff will attempt to walk you through these later stages of the painting.

This lesson will be a female from a photo in front view. We should always start with a solid drawing, then proceed to lay-in our initial stain and start working up our shadow patterns and mid-tones.

In this exercise we will mimic the procedure used for the female cast, but now we will use a blue/black and white palette for some variation. We will work on indication of musculature, as well as value, edge, and shape control.