Portrait Workshop with Jason Arkles

In July, I participated in a portrait workshop taught by Jason Arkles (http://jasonarkles.com/) at his studio in the heart of Florence Italy. I arrived on a Saturday evening and waded through crowds of touriests to my AirBnB accompanied by the view of this sunset.

The workshop began Monday morning and ran from 9AM-12PM and 1PM-4PM every day thru Friday. Our model’s name was Irene. She is a model, photographer, and seamstress (https://www.instagram.com/cuordibambola/?hl=en). Here she is at the very beginning along with our armatures, in one of the dresses she designed and made.

We began by making an egg shape on a cylinder.

Turning both Irene and the clay model, we centered the head on the post and developed the profile.

Then, turning frequently and working on different angles, we made the large shapes of the portrait.

In the evenings, I went home to my AirBnB along the Arno. This was my view walking home.

I had a classmate for this workshop. Her name is Jill. You can check out her work here (https://www.instagram.com/jill_moss_studios/?hl=en) Here’s Jill working on the 2nd day.

Jason worked alongside us, demonstrating on a smaller scale model. Jason was a serious teacher. Very serious.

After making the big shapes, things started getting kind of messy and frustrating for me around day 3. Also lopsided.

But, it started pulling together by day 4, and my portrait started looking like the model.

Day 5 was spent developing the smaller forms, cleaning up the surface, and changing aspects of the portrait that were very bothersome. Here she is, all the way around.

My last evening in Florence, there was another gorgeous sunset.