Explore the art of portraiture with Wendy Barratt, Sky Portrait Artist of the Year 2023.
Join us for an engaging workshop focused on the fundamentals of portrait drawing, led by award-winning artist Wendy Barratt. Working from a live model, you’ll develop key observational skills, learning how to capture proportion, structure and a strong likeness.
Through a series of guided exercises, Wendy will introduce approaches to line, tone and mark-making, helping you to build confidence and develop a more expressive and responsive drawing style. You’ll explore how different materials can be used to create depth, texture and character in your work.
In the latter part of the session, you’ll apply these techniques to create a more sustained portrait, with individual guidance to support your process.
Suitable for all levels, this workshop offers a supportive environment to refine your skills and deepen your understanding of portraiture. By the end of the session, you’ll have produced a series of studies and a resolved portrait drawing to take home.
Wendy Barratt
Wendy Barratt is an artist who is fascinated with representing the human – both in portraiture and life drawing. Her portraiture is made primarily in oil paint whereas life drawing becomes an experiment in mostly dry media. She is the winner of Sky Portrait Artist of the Year 2023.
She studied graphic design in Manchester back in the early 80s and has been working ever since as a designer, until a few years ago when she launched herself as a full-time artist. Throughout her career, she has spent a lot of her spare time in the life room honing her artistic skills as well as passing on her love of drawing and painting onto others through teaching.
Recently she has seen her paintings accepted for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition as well as having work exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. Commissions include large portraits which were used as major props for the ITV Crime Drama series The Long Call. Wendy is a member of the Contemporary British Portrait Painters and her self-portrait was selected for the Herbert Smith Freehills Painting award show at the National Portrait Gallery in 2024.
