Veronica Colvin

Shane – Oil Sketch from Life

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I just finished teaching Portrait Drawing and Portrait Painting at Sydney Art School on Mondays this term. In between teaching and critiquing student’s work, I managed to paint a very quick oil sketch of the model for the term – Shane.

I demo as we work through the term. I would have liked to have finished it, but I’m there to teach, not paint!

I’m back teaching Term 1, 2024. Classes start Monday, 29 January. If you are interested in joining my class, you can enrol here.

The school is still running the promo from this term – but it will most likely go down soon. So if you are interested, best to quickly enrol for next year so as not to miss out on the savings.

Portrait Life Drawing

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During the last couple of months, I’ve had a number of models pose for me at my studio and I’ve created a range of tonal / value portrait sketches from the sessions. Each portrait sketch is a result of a one day model sitting – drawn from life.

Most of these sketches were created with raw umber or chrome black, rubbed into a polyester canvas. It works and looks similar to charcoal sketches. I quite enjoy working this way when time is limited, as I’m able to get a lot done in a one day session – specially when the drawing and value / tonal range is more important to get correct, rather than a quick splash of paint and colour.

I also use raw umber or chrome black paint to sketch the original drawing – as it easily rubs off with a kneaded eraser. Once I’m happy with the drawing, I then proceed to tonally construct the portrait with the oil paint.

You can see larger versions of these drawing in my Digital / Traditional Drawings Gallery.

Left to right:

  • Carl – Chrome Black oil sketch
  • Olivia – Raw Umber oil sketch
  • Shane – Charcoal sketch
  • Benedicta – Raw Umber oil sketch

Naked & Nude Exhibition

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The Naked & Nude Art Prize Exhibition is on till Sunday, 15 October at the Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree. Still time to make it if you can. It’s a wonderful exhibition!

I have a digital oil painting “See Me” in the exhibition, and you can view the exhibition booklet here showcasing all the paintings.

I was at the opening night and it was jam packed and wonderful to have been there to see all the paintings in person.

Shane – Charcoal Tonal Study

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Shane is a local life model in Sydney. He’s also an artist and filmmaker. I recently had him in the studio posing for myself and another painter. On the day I did a small colour study of him. As I took a reference shot of his pose, and really liked his spectacles and how they reflected the light, I decided to do a quick charcoal tonal study. Below is the result.

The paper I used is Canson “C” a grain – which has a slightly grained texture that allows one to quickly achieve subtle effects of depth as well as shading between shadow and light. I do like the texture the paper provides, though in photography it does come across as slightly more grainy than it is.

Dilara – Demo Oil Sketch for Students

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Dilara is a life model and I painted the below oil sketch from a recent portrait painting class I taught at Sydney Art School.

The oil sketch is the result of a couple of sessions demonstrating to students how to paint predominantly Alla Prima (a direct painting approach where paint is applied wet on wet without letting earlier layers dry).

I have a direct style of painting, where I prefer to block in the colours that I see and immediately cover the canvas so none of the white from the background shows through. This approach also aids me to establish colours and values in the early stages of the painting, and providing a solid foundation for consecutive paint layers.

Teaching – Sydney Art School

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I’ll be teaching at Sydney Art School on Mondays for Term 4 (starting Monday, 9 October 2023) – running for eight weeks.

Sydney Art School has an introductory promo for my classes – see details below!

You can attend Portrait Drawing starting at 10:30am and/or Portrait Painting starting at 1:00pm. Sydney Art School is running a promo if you purchase both classes for $500 – a saving of $300!

You can enrol for my Portrait Drawing class starting at 10:30am here. Make sure you pick either 10:30am start class or the promo under my name.

You can enrol for my Portrait Painting class starting starting at 1:00pm here. Make sure you pick 1:00pm start class or the promo under my name.