Portraiture & Facial Anatomy

Portraiture & Facial Anatomy is an intensive six-week course designed to teach artists the critical foundations necessary to accurately depict the human face. The course demystifies the art of portraiture by breaking the face down into its fundamental elements of anatomy – the skull and its landmarks, the skeletal muscles of the head, structural fat pads, subcutaneous fat, visible tendons & ligaments, cartilage, and the muscles of expression and how they influence the forms of the face.

Once the anatomical structures of the face are covered, Scott shows how these are varied and combined to create a portrait of any age, weight, gender, or expression. By the end of the course artists will have a deep understanding of the large and small structures that make each face unique and will have the tools to construct the face no matter what their medium of creation.

CONTENT The course is divided into two halves, the first half covers facial anatomy and the second portraiture. The anatomy lectures give artists a detailed understanding of the underlying structures of the face while the portraiture lectures apply this information along with proportions and constructional techniques to create portraits.

PART I: ANATOMY

The Skull in-depth

Skeletal Muscles of the Head

Eyes in-depth

Feature Construction

Facial Fat

Muscles of Expression

PART II: PORTRAITURE

Expressions in-depth

Likeness

Caricature

Age & Weight

Putting it all together

EXERCISES & ASSIGNMENTS

Practice is essential to internalizing the lessons presented in the course. Weekly assignments include two levels of difficulty, depending on how comfortable people are with drawing.

Level 1: These exercises will guide people through the construction of the face and features. These exercises teach and reinforce the principles of construction which can be used in any medium, but do not require skill in drawing

Level 2: The assignments build on the level 1 exercises and require more free-hand drawing for those comfortable or looking to improve their drawing.

Full enrollment students submit their weekly assignments to Scott for feedback and advice. Typical feedback involves draw-overs of the the student’s assignment, plus pointers for improvement. Full-enrollment students are also able (and encouraged) to submit personal projects for critique during the course.