This fall I had the pleasure of attending a portrait drawing workshop with Judith Carducci in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The workshop was an intense 5 day drawing excursion using mostly charcoal and few colors. Judith believes that as artists we get to enarmored with color before our basics have been mastered.
Here she is at work on the first day with the model
An example of her portrait work.
Here is one of her demos using a male model. For this demo the class asked for you guessed it –more color.!! But this seems to come very natural to her. Even here, she used no more than 8 colors.
The finished version.
These are my drawings
I could see a marked improvement in my drawing over the week. The reason she uses five days is because she feels that in the beginning you are slower, by the third day you start to get your aha!! moment. Judith stresses “follow the shadow pattern” in order to get a good likeness. I know this is a lot different from the more constructionist methods of drawing portraits, but it is important to keep the light and shade pattern in mind in reproducing form. The reason she uses is five days is because she feels that in the beginning you are slower, by the third day you start to get your aha!! moment. She offers a separate pastel/color class and a Master class which ties everything together. I know I would love to attend another session.
Tracye Travis 