How do you paint realistic portraits with great accuracy and detail? One way is to use the classical sight size technique, a technique used by famous artists such as Singer Sargent and Velazquez, aligning the model to the canvas and transferring the image across. 

The practice of painting head studies in the sight size technique originated with Titian, and has a long history in the UK, perfected by court painters such as Van Dyke and elegantly applied by portraitists such as Reynolds, Rayburn and Lawrence.

Artist, Emily Roberts who trained at Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence has been teaching and mastering the sight size technique for many years and will be sharing all she knows with you in the studio over four days.

The emphasis of the approach for this course is on light and shadow, so that, while structural accuracy is important, anatomy is only touched upon; the approach is visual.  

Explore ways to make a charcoal drawing with an emphasis on creating contour and isolating light and shadow shapes. Emily will provide an example of each stage of the drawing and painting process as the course progresses. She will show you how to transfer a drawing to canvas and start painting in oils, using traditional mediums to layer paint and build up colour, using the model as a constant reference.  

The aim is to come away from the course with an introduction to the sight size technique, knowledge of traditional approaches to charcoal portrait drawing and an introduction to mixing using a limited palette, as well as a firm grounding in searching for the light flow on a subject. By the end of the session you will take away a charcoal drawing on paper and a 30x40cm painting on canvas. 

Emily’s approach to teaching is one of mutual discovery. She always works alongside the student in order to guide and move through obstacles together. The basis of the method that she use is very step by step, offering guidance to those with less
experience, but allows for personal expression and the touch of the individual to shine through.

What will I learn?

• An introduction into the sight size technique
• How to find light flow on a subject and create subtle transitions from light to shadow
• Traditional approaches to charcoal drawing
• Transferring a drawing to canvas
• Colour mixing using a limited palette of oil paints

Who would this course suit?

This course would suit any interested student with any level of experience. The technique is very ‘step-by-step’, so even students with no background in drawing or painting will be pleased with their progress. Those with experience of life drawing or portraiture will enjoy this in depth exploration into a historic technique, and those looking to tweak their current practice may find elements of the approach beneficial.

What to Bring

Timings and Breaks