I have often admired portraits painted with pastels, and was captivated by Alain Picard’s ‘Portrait Week’—a very low cost intro. I was hooked! I signed up for the course, and loved it. He is a very kind, warm, positive teacher, with everything explained in clear steps and lots of demo material. 

The only downside to his set-up (for me) was that the Community group is on Facebook, which I don’t do. I tried to get a ‘Mid-West WhatsApp group’ going but it never really succeeded.

He also has great videos for free on YouTube. 

Pastels are on hold for me now, but I want to get back to them in the future. I love the velvety feel, the vibrant colors, the layering, and the bold strokes. 

The Allaprima Bootcamp is a wonderful teaching and mentoring program which has exceeded my expectations since I joined 7 months ago. It has an initial (sizeable) cost to join, which gives you access to Chelsea’s  teaching in 8 Modules, and life-time access to mentoring by Chelsea, and access to the Discord community. There is too much to say here, but if you’d like to know more, send me an email. 

I cannot link directly to Contemporary Oil Portraits by Torsten Wolber, because it is inside my account, but you can search for it if you want to buy it. 

Domestika is mainly a European platform with a large variety of courses, including many portrait courses. Once you buy a course you own it forever, and the sale prices are often very reasonable. 

Torsten Wolber is German, and the course is in German with English visual translations. He is very lively and humorous; this is probably my favorite short course that I’ve done. 

I took all three of Ian Robert’s’ courses in 2023 (Mastering Composition, Bold Brushwork, Vibrant Color). Each one is 6-8 weeks long. They are all held on the Mighty Networks platform, in which the courses are self-contained. There is a weekly live video, and then students are paired up in a Buddy system to critique each others’ work for the week. I find Ian Roberts’ teaching to be very thorough, in depth, and often philosophical. There is excellent material on self-assessment of your paintings.

I learned a lot, and still participate in the Community group. 

He also has a lot of videos for free on YouTube if you want to see how and what he teaches. 

I learned some useful things from this course, and like some of her methods. She explains very well (she’s English, so there is no language translation happening). 

I have been a member of this Study Group since Fall 2024 when Kenzo (the teacher) put out the Portrait Course. I learned so much from the course that I continued. One thing I love about the Study Group is the Co-Drawing opportunities—I try to do 2/month. There is also the opportunity for recorded feedback on your work, and great photo reference sets. 

I completed the Fresh Eyes Challenge (free to anyone) just to see what it is. It’s very helpful and I learned a lot about drawing the figure. 

This was how I started using oil paints, transitioning from acrylics. Paint Coach Chris Fornatero has great information, concisely put, no fluff, but some humor. 

I watched YouTube videos to start with, and then took his Portrait Course, and Landscape Course, and supported him on Patreon for a while. It’s a great way to start with oils. I still watch his videos now and then.