John Singer Sargent Helen Sears

£145.00

6 in stock

Workshop = £145

10 Places Only

6 in stock

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Description

John Singer Sargent Helen Sears
27th – 28th December
Saturday and Sunday
9.30am – 4.30pm
Workshop £145

Workshop Outline

Level: Beginners to Intermediate
Medium: Oil Paint

Step into the world of John Singer Sargent and learn how to harness the expressive power of his brushwork, colour handling, and paint application. In this immersive two-day mastercopy workshop, you will study and recreate Portrait of Helen Sears, one of Sargent’s most captivating works.

Guided step-by-step, you’ll explore the exact materials and techniques he used — from the flowing, decisive brush strokes to the subtle layering of stand oil glazes and the bold textures of impasto highlights.

What You’ll Learn

Brushwork Analysis & Recreation
Break down Sargent’s hallmark strokes — elegant, fluid, and deceptively confident. Learn how to mimic their energy and clarity.

Mediums: Stand Oil & Impasto Techniques
Understand how to handle stand oil to achieve luminous, controlled transparency, and how to build impasto passages that create movement and texture.

Value Structure & Edges
Study Sargent’s mastery of edges, value groupings, and simplification — essential principles for expressive portraiture.

Full Mastercopy Process
From drawing setup to final accents, complete your own mastercopy of Helen Sears to take home.

What’s Included

Expert Demonstrations

Step-by-step demos showing Sargent’s approach to brushwork, mixing, glazing with stand oil, and building impasto passages. You’ll see each stage clearly before applying it to your own painting.

Individual Guidance Throughout

Personal feedback tailored to your skill level. Whether you’re a beginner or experienced painter, you’ll receive hands-on support to help you understand and recreate Sargent’s technique.

Drawing & Composition Setup

Guidance on how to block in the portrait, establish proportions, group values, and simplify shapes — all crucial lessons drawn directly from Sargent’s process.

Mediums & Technique Breakdown

Learn how to handle:

  • Stand oil for subtle glazes and controlled blending

  • Impasto paint for expressive, textured highlights

  • Sargent-inspired layering methods and edge control

Colour Mixing Instruction

A clear approach to mixing the limited palette used for the workshop, showing how Sargent created harmony, temperature shifts, and those signature glowing flesh tones.

Materials List Provided in Advance

A full, easy-to-follow materials list to keep your setup simple and cost-effective. Recommendations for paints, mediums, brushes, supports, and optional extras.

Tea, Coffee & Light Refreshments

A relaxed, friendly studio environment with drinks and light snacks included to keep you fuelled as you work.

Palette and palette knife
Medium holder
Medium and thinners
Prepared canvas
Paper towel,  cotton wool buds
Paint – (cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, violet, ultramarine, viridian, burnt umber and white).

We recomend Natural Bristle Brushes, Rosemary Bravura Long Flat Brushes. Sizes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 are a good starting range.

https://www.rosemaryandco.com/oil-brushes/bravura-bristle/bravura-longflat

Discount Off the Portrait Painting Course 25-26

If you’re considering enroling in the Year-Long Academy Portrait Painting Course 25-26, this workshop offers an excellent opportunity to experience our facilities first-hand before committing.

As an added bonus, the cost of the Imprimatura Portrait Workshop will be fully deducted from the Portrait Painting Course when you decide to join. READ MORE

Here are some snapshots from our recent workshop, where students worked on the Pre-Raphaelite Style Workshop. As you can see, the participants achieved impressive results.

Beginners and experienced people are welcome. Understanding is key and nobody gets left behind. Each student will be helped until they grasp the principles of the lesson. Louis will be demonstrating each step in front of the group and on students work if needed.
Louis Smith studied Classical Art in Florence and has exhibited his work in the National Portrait Gallery and Royal Society of Portrait

Materials Included

Organisation is a challenge faced by most beginners.  The studio is equiped with work stations so that everything is at hand.  The students will be using the same paints and canvas that the teacher uses for demonstration, eliminating a number of problems that students have when they bring their own paints and canvas. Each workstation includes;

  • Palette and palette knife
  • Medium holder
  • Medium and thinners
  • Prepared canvas
  • Paper towel,  cotton wool buds
  • Paint – (cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, violet, ultramarine, viridian, burnt umber and white).

(Offer does not include brushes – Information on dedicated suppliers shall be provided)

Equipment

The studio is thoughtfully equipped with easels and workstations, providing students with a convenient space to organize their materials and concentrate on their artwork. Balanced lighting enhances the environment, helping to eliminate common challenges when working with a color palette.

The image showcases a workstation, featuring an Alla Prima painting for display purposes only.

full-length-1

Interested in the workshop? Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!

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