Portraits With Sabine

Painting and drawing portraits is such a fascinating activity.

In addition to the creative dimension of making the artwork, working with portraits also connects us to the person depicted and to the wider aspects of being human.

In this course we unite a wide range of learner interests! Join us if you paint portraits at home and you want to do this in the company of others, show what you do and chat about your process and your results. If you have never worked with portraits before, Sabine will show you a unique portraiture technique: We start with making our own tracing templates from photographs of faces. Some photographs are suited for this process and others not – so we learn which ones are, and how to choose them. Learners can bring in photographs of people whom they want to paint. At this stage we can already capture the likeness of a person. We then process our tracing templates further: We use hatching to study light and shadow in a face and then continue to paint the portraits with watercolours.

Sabine will demonstrate the basics of working with watercolour washes and using a watercolour brush to make efficient marks.

A face has different tones of colour: In a person with light complexion, there are yellows, pinks and purple/greens and we can blend these colours in our wet-in-wet watercolour technique. We will then transfer our experience from using watercolours to using acrylic paints or oils.

In our course we also offer the opportunity to draw a portrait from live observation. Sabine will demonstrate how to draw head and face form observing a person using pencils. She will use lines to construct proportions and shape. If learners want they can try this out too.

Achieving likeness in a portrait is difficult and needs to be seen as a process that needs practice. It can be a very rewarding undertaking to practice making portraits even if not every picture fulfills all likeness criteria. Sabine teaches the above technique based on making our own tracing templates from photographs because it can catch a person’s facial proportions at the stage of the sketch and in this way promises the best way forward with a colour picture.

Sabine will provide plenty of demonstrations for each step and will help each learner individually.

You are booking for the following dates: 26 Feb, 5,12,19,26 March 2026

Learners need to bring pencils, fine-liners, watercolours and acrylic paints.

However, for the first session, only the following things will be needed:

- A4 photocopying paper (or slightly thicker paper if they wish)

- pencils (HB, 2B and 4B) and a pencil sharpener

- a water-resistant fine-liner

Dr Sabine Kussmaul is a visual artist and fashion designer who has many years of experience in teaching drawing. She holds a PGCE(FE), and a masters degree in Fine Art. In her PhD project, Sabine researched drawing and installation in connection to the outdoor world of the British Peak District.