Portrait Painting
Class | Registration closed 9/16/2025
Instruction Medium: Oil
No Class: 10/13/25
In portrait painting we will cover how to begin a painting with a monochrome under-painting to more easily establish our lights and shadows. Angling and measuring will be stressed in order to establish proportion in an accurate and analytical way. Two essential issues will dominate our approach, proportion and light and shadow. We’ll start slowly and methodically as we add layers of color and make more informed decisions. The skull will be used to become familiar with the underlying structure of the head. The importance of edges, where one value transitions into another, will be stressed (light defines form, edges define the kind of form). We’ll be working with a rather limited, and manageable, pallet of very specific colors. Brush work, proportion, edges, angling and measuring, and figure/ground relationships will all be covered.
Jim Phalen
Jim Phalen was born in Phoenix, AZ in 1957 and showed an interest in art at an early age. Upon graduating high school, he traveled to Europe to explore and see the great museums. Jim received his BA from the San Francisco Art Institute, awarded the Painting Prize upon graduation, and earned his MA and MFA at the University of New Mexico. He then moved to NYC where he lived for 5 years, exhibiting and teaching at such institutions as Bowdoin College, Maine and SUNY Buffalo, NY.
Jim now resides in Washington. He has taught locally with the University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts, University of Puget Sound, and Gage Academy of Art. He has been awarded a Pollock/Krasner Grant from Artist Trust and a solo show at the Frye Museum. He shows nationally, awarded an artist residency at the Bellycastle Arts Foundation in Mayo, Ireland and most recently a two-month artist residency at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. He was invited back for 2025.