TAS Kington Langley and Successful Bespoke Painting Workshop with Alice White

Portrait Painting Workshop with Alice White

Funded by The Patricia Fay Fund from the Arts Society.

Alice, an Arts Society Lecturer and tutor at the University of the Arts London, joined forces with Heather Leach, TASKL YA Representative, to co-ordinate a bespoke Portrait Painting workshop for 6th Form students at Hardenhuish School, Chippenham on October 13th.

Alice is a practising award-winning painter who brings an artists’ eye, as well as a tutor’s eye, to encourage students to explore, experiment and reflect on their work.

We were successful with our application to The Patricia Fay Fund, which allowed us to buy in a specialised range of acrylic paints, appropriate for skin tones, together with brushes and high-quality paper. The fund also provided research and development time for Alice to plan the workshops to suit the year 12 &13 students, ensuring the content would be both engaging and enjoyable.

Following numerous emails and Zoom meetings with Alice and Jess Bigwood, Head of Faculty at Hardenhuish School, the first workshop dawned.

The session began with close-up studies of faces. Some students chose to use photos of their own face: often with their hands pressing or moving the skin, to create interesting movements in the muscles and expression. Other students selected photos of celebrities or people who they saw as important.

Once students were comfortable with the exercises, they were set further studies to explore ways of using natural hues like beige, ochre and brown, together with warm and cold tones, to build up the surface of the portrait. Alice ran a series of short demonstrations throughout the day, explaining the difference between using paint-brushes and palette knives, layering translucent surfaces and building up impasto. She also explained the basic aspects of using colour theory in portrait painting. 

By the end of the day each student had completed a selection of studies which can be added to their current coursework portfolio, and included in applications to University.

We look forward to developing their skills in the second workshop. The students worked with focus all day, engaged with difficult concepts and ideas, and created a thoughtful body of work. They were a pleasure to work with.

Alice encouraged them to think like professional artists, understanding how an audience engages with an artwork. She also talked about putting a portfolio together and how to develop their ideas as they go further in their career.

We are all grateful to The Patricia Fay Fund which enabled this first workshop to take place, and which will allow us to run a follow-up workshop next year.  We’re delighted to have launched these sessions, which we first began planning in 2020, but were delayed due to Covid.

We hope this approach of linking expert knowledge with education continues to be supported by TAS, and inspires other Members and Lecturers to develop outreach projects.

Heather Leach.

Chair The Arts Society Kington Langley

See Alice’s portfolio www.alicewhiteart.com