Through this three-week course students with previous drawing experience will develop their portraiture skills by exploring the painterly qualities of charcoal and the tensions in perceptual drawing between structure and detail, suggestion and description, and drawing what you know and what you see.

Working from a single model, students will have the opportunity to develop portraits over multiple classes.

One focus of the course will be understanding anatomy vis-à-vis lights and shadows. Another will be the material properties of charcoal, developing a sense of touch to better apply additive and subtractive value techniques, control edges and build texture.

Willow and vine charcoal—which are easily manipulated—will be the primary media of the course, but students may also work in compressed charcoal or charcoal pencils. Students will learn through guided instruction, demonstrations, self-exploration, and individual and group critiques.