I am a Fremantle artist of the Russian art school. From the time I was a student my art was heavily influenced by the Russian greats including Repin, Serov, Korovin, as well as the European impressionists such as Degas, Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh. Thus my style can be defined as a blend of Realism and Impressionism.
I am strongly convinced that any artist, no matter what style he or she works in, needs to know the fundamentals as taught in European art education. Therefore when I teach my students I emphasise the classical method in representing a scene or portraying a person. I teach the main components of a drawing curriculum – composition, anatomy, proportions, perspective . From there the students can develop their own distinctive styles.
During my portrait painting/drawing classes I intend to cover the following topics:
- The fundamental concepts of drawing – composition, proportions, perspective, construction of a drawing.
- Human anatomy, construction of a head, construction of face elements such as an eye, a nose, lips.
- Facial planes drawing.
- Painting a partial copy of a famous artist’s work, in particular, parts of a face.
- Painting a copy of a portrait by a great master.
- A life portrait painting under my guidance.
- Portrait painting in grisaille.
- Mixing colours.
- Portrait painting in oil (optional).
Tatyana Soboleva 