Tony Ryder portrait painting workshop

[Michele Rushworth]

... and a detail of it so you can see the watery consistency of the paint in this layer.

For anyone considering taking a workshop, needless to say, I highly recommend signing up for one of Tony's. He teaches all over the place (including some fun destinations like France).

[Mary Pedini]

Hi Michele,

I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you posting your step by step progress, it is facinating to see.

Is this close to the way you have approached your portraits previously? You have already attained such a high level of success in your portraits, I'm curious to see how much of Tony's method you will apply to your own work. Thanks so much for your generosity in sharing this with us at the forum!

Mary

[Michele Rushworth]

I have never painted a portrait in this way before, with this kind of color study or a "wash-in". I've always been of the school of "jump right in and wing it," though I did do a drawing like this on the canvas to start.

[Terri Ficenec]

This is really neat to see. . . Just wondering what you're thinning the paint with to get that 'watery consistency' ?

[Kimberly Dow]

Michele,

Thank you for posting - this is interesting.

Just a couple of quick questions. Are you using a dryer so you can paint right on top the next day? Or, are you painting over the wash-in while it's wet? If it's dry do you put anything on it, like linseed, before you start painting again?

I suppose if the wash is thinned with mineral spirits it would be dry by the next day.

[Michele Rushworth]

The wash is thinned with mineral spirits and is dry the next day.

[Michele Rushworth]

Well, the workshop is over. I started getting worn out by day 8 -- my brain was completely full. Tony must have been exhausted, too, as were the models, after 50 hours of the same pose!

I've had a request for the supplies list Tony sent us for the workshop. There were 40 colors of oil paint on the list, about half of which were the more strongly recommended ones, in case we didn't want to get all of them.

The "recommended" colors were:

• Titanium white
  W/N Jaune Brilliant (a very useful color that I had never tried before)
  Naples Yellow Light
  Cad lemon yellow
  Cad yellow medium
  Cad orange
  Cad red med
  Cobalt violet
  Ultramarine violet (another very useful color that I had not previously tried)
  Cobalt blue
  Cerulean blue
  Viridian
  Chrome oxide green
  Sap green
  Raw sienna
  Raw umber
  Burnt umber
  Ivory black
  Old Holland Brilliant Pink (yet another color that was new to my palette that I will be adding on a regular basis)
  Old Holland Deep Ochre

Also on the supplies list:

• A small stretched canvas, approx 10x12" to 14"x16", Tony uses double oil primed linen with a fairly smooth texture
  Vine charcoal, sharpened to a long fine point
  A chamois (which erased unneeded vine charcoal lines instantly from most canvas grounds)
  Sanding block for sharpening the charcoal
  A kneaded eraser for removing smaller sections during our charcoal drawing step
  A mini canvas board about 4x6" for the poster study
  A range of round, nylon brushes in sizes from 00 to 8. I wish I had brought many more of the smaller sizes.
  A wooden or glass palette
  Mahl stick

Tony provided medium which contained:

• 1 part damar varnish
  1 part venice turpentine
  5 parts light stand oil
  20 parts odorless mineral spirits

I'll post more photos of my work and Tony's demo later.

[Michele Rushworth]

To answer an earlier question in this thread, Tony sometimes uses natural light and sometimes artificial light in his own studio.

[Michele Rushworth]

Here's Tony's demo in progress. It shows the lines from the initial drawing (on the ear), the "wash in" layer (on the cheek and chest, etc.) and part of the "form painting", seen in the shadow areas and features of the face. This represents about 7 days of demonstrating, two hours a day, including lots of time explaining.

Normally Tony would complete the entire wash-in before beginning the form painting. He starts the form painting in the shadows, then chooses a section to paint completely. In this case he painted the chin first, from darks, to midtones and finally to lights. Once that was completely finished he moved to another area of the face.

[Michele Rushworth]

This is the demo at the point where he stopped at the end of the ten-day class.