Portrait of Carrie

Carrie

charcoal and graphite on paper

© Nicki Ault, 2015

Wow! Where do I begin to tell you about the portrait drawing workshop? I guess first off I need to express sincere thanks to Matthew Mancini for sharing his incredible talent and wealth of knowledge with us. He did two demos, one of each model, to show us his process in building a portrait as well as talk us through his thoughts. At this time he was also able to demonstrate the use of different materials, including drawing with loose charcoal and a brush, something I had never done before. He spent the first morning working his way through the drawing of Carrie and then he worked on it here and there for the rest of the weekend as long as we were settled and not needing assistance.

Matthew Mancini

~demonstration of portrait drawing~

There were ten students in the class and the way Matt worked the room, I am certain we all felt very well taken care of and supported in our efforts. He was incredibly gracious and generous and had a way of zeroing in on what each of us needed. It was fascinating and inspiring to watch his drawing come to life over the course of the eighteen hours. Seeing what is possible makes me want to get better and better.

Portrait of Carrie

charcoal, graphite and white chalk on paper

© Matthew Mancini, 2015

I had forgotten just how much I love to draw. I have never spent this kind of time on a life drawing before. We had the same model and same pose for the entire weekend (two models, five students to each model), so there was time to really get into it and not feel panicked to finish. I was pleased to find the Bargue training being used in a practical, real-life scenario!

Matthew is still in Saskatoon (he lives in the country outside of Toronto) and is going to be instructing a figure drawing workshop on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and then on the weekend he is doing another two day workshop on alla prima painting in the style of John Singer Sargent. I am sure both will be excellent and wish I was able to sign up for them. Huge thanks to Craig Berry at Atelier 2302 for bringing to our city yet another great artist for us to experience. 

Please take the time to learn more about Matthew Mancini at his website www.matthewmanciniart.com.