Adult Summer Workshop

Portrait Sessions - An Introduction to Portraiture

Name: Hereford College of Arts
Price range: $

Cost

£210
Tutor

Lexi Strauss
Duration

4 days
Dates

5th - 8th August

Whether you’re a complete beginner or just brushing up existing skills, this four day portraiture workshop will build confidence through solid exercises and enjoyable experiments in portraiture technique.

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Overview

This 4-day portraiture course is designed to build your confidence and skills in drawing portraits, with a focus on both capturing likeness and expressive mark-making.

Working in a friendly, social studio environment, you’ll explore facial structure, anatomy, and the art of conveying character and emotion. Through guided exercises and plenty of individual support, you’ll experiment with graphite, charcoal, ink, and pastels for those wishing to introduce colour.

We’ll cover the fundamentals of line, tone, proportion, and composition, while encouraging you to develop your own creative style.

A woman with long dark brown hair standing at an easel. Her arm is outstretched and she is looking off-camera towards her subject.

A loose sketchy pencil drawing of a man holding a cigarette.

A group of people sat around a portrait model. They are all sat at drawing desks and are focussing on drawing the woman in front of them.

Photo of Lexi Strauss painting a colourful painting. She is wearing a neon pink beret and is smiling at the camera.

About the Tutor

Lexi, an MA Painting graduate from the Royal College of Art (2014) and Fine Art graduate from Hereford College of Arts (2011), is a painter and performer known for her unique paintings, theatrical installations and art clown performances. Her work bridges art, theatre, and comedy, often exploring themes of humour and trauma—a focus recently supported by Arts Council England funding.

See more of Lexi's work

FAQs

All materials will be provided including inks, paints, paper, pencils and sketchbooks. You will also have the opportunity to buy your own materials in our on-campus shop if you want to.

Make sure to bring some water, and wear clothes that you can get messy.

This course will be held at our College Road campus.

This masterclass will run across four days, from 5th - 8th August.

The workshop will start at 10am and finish at 4pm each day. You may need to arrive earlier than 10am on the first day of the course for registration. You will be emailed about this once you have booked onto the course.

This course is suitable for anyone over the age of 16.

We recommend that attendees between the ages of 16 and 18 are accompanied by a parent or guardian who is also a paying participant.

Some drawing experience is recommended, or completion of one of Lexi’s introductory drawing or painting courses.

We keep our class sizes small so that you benefit from a lot of contact time with the tutor. There will be a maximum of 15 people attending this course.

Yes, there will be a 45 minute break for lunch. Unfortunately, our on-campus cafe won't be open during this time, but there is a corner shop just down the road from the campus where you can buy lunch, or you can bring your own.

Light refreshments such as tea and coffee will be provided.