Week 4: portraits, group portraits, landscapes and rock music

Tonight we worked on a range of projects including single portraits, group portrait work and some Vallotton landscape studies. Early days for the work but all are in a good place in the process to make good progress over the coming weeks. Big apologies to Ella for omitting her fabulous drawing - will add this next week!

Andy: so much stronger as a painting to see the background fully painted and the more carefully painted lettering. Try to add some tone areas on the face to make it more solid and interesting on the eye.

Caroline: a strong start to your Vallotton study. Good ground colour layers. Now look with extra scrutiny and thought on what colours to use to blend in the next layers. Think about blending technique - we will look at this together next time you are in so you know how to proceed in pastels.

Claire: Good start with applying the ground colours and very good under-drawing of the main shapes. Look again at all of the shapes the Vallotton painting you are studying and draw them in again to ensure you understand them. Then continue adding ground colours within these shape until all the white paper is covered. We will look at how to add the next layers of colour and blending techniques together next session so you know how to proceed. 

Dorothy: a very good "freehand" study of a complex group image. Just do a bit of measuring to make sure you have understood the proportions of the figures especially the legs which you rightly thought needed a second look. Then either draw this freehand again on larger scale or grid this study onto an A3 sheet. 

Graeme: this is developing really well with increasing sense of solidity and more consistent interest across the whole sheet. Look to completely paint out the white paper so all we see is paint and colour. 

Jeff: a challenging group image choice but loads of potential to enjoy it - a strong start with the main character. Think about how to contrast this figure with the others when you add them. The sfumato technique will certainly help.

Rebecca: very good start with all areas of the paper now covered with the ground colour. Good to see you have identified the main shapes in your initial underdrawing showing you understand the design. You're in a good position to now start adding the second layers of colour. We will look at this together next session so you know how to proceed. 

Yvonne: a lovely sense of the closeness and quietness of the moment in your drawing study. Work up more studies to help you build up your understanding of what makes this image work and to refine your decisions on choices of line, shape and tone. Use some measuring from time to time to help support the "realness" of the drawn figures.