Painting the Head with Confidence: A Portrait Artist’s Toolkit

NOTE: This course is on presale! Discount ends and all lessons will be released on July 7th

Put Refined Craftsmanship Behind Every Portrait

If your portraits stall out at the “almost” stage (eyes just a touch too high, lips that refuse to turn in space, skin that flattens under each new layer) this course will deliver you the structure your instincts have been missing. I'll help you approach the head feature by feature, method by method, and tie it all together with a repeatable workflow that works in oils, acrylics, or digital media.

A Curriculum Built Around Concrete Skills

Proportional Architecture: We'll work on mastering the Loomis thirds grid, sphere-and-jaw construction, and front-to-back volume ratios so every head sits correctly in perspective before you commit a single highlight. You'll also learn to quickly measure checkpoints that eliminate “feature drift” during longer sessions.

A Focus on Features: You'll learn how to construct eyes using keystone landmarks and tilted lids that break away from the typical almond shape. How noses get built from solid three-block forms, with clean shadow edges and a sense of translucency that feels real. Ears won’t be an afterthought anymore, you’ll place the helix and antihelix correctly in perspective. And for mouths, you’ll work on overlapping lip forms, recessed underplanes, and subtle highlights to get that soft, believable volume.

Value & Color Strategy: Translate sculptural planes into a clear light–mid–shadow hierarchy, then layer temperature shifts that avoid chalky skin. Integrate subsurface “glow” accents and edge control so forms turn without muddying.

Integrated Portrait Pipeline: From transparent imprimatura to controlled impasto or crisp digital edges, follow a six-step painting sequence that keeps each stage manageable—and revisitable if corrections are needed. We'll also cover brush-stroke hierarchy (big → medium → accent) making surfaces lively without losing structure.

Why These Skills Matter

By isolating each technical hurdle like placement, form, value, and color and then recombining them in the final module, the course builds layered competence rather than scattered fragments of knowledge. You’ll identify errors ``earlier, correct them faster, and finish portraits that hold up from thumbnail to close-up inspection.

Escalate from rapid-gesture drills to full-render studies, reinforced by high-resolution 3D scans and over-the-shoulder demos. Whether you aim for tight realism or expressive looseness, the underlying anatomy and light logic remain the same and you’ll have them on command.

See The Results 

After you apply what's taught and you practice you can expect a portfolio shift in your portraits. Your heads will feel grounded in space, facial features will breathe, and your skin tones will carry subtle life. More importantly, expect a calmer studio practice because when proportion, form, and color have a reliable roadmap, creativity can focus on expression instead of firefighting technical issues.

Ready to build portraits on rock-solid fundamentals? Enroll in Portrait Painting: Head First and turn “almost” into undeniable mastery.