Portrait Long Pose Fall 2025
Evening Class | Available
This class provides a step-by-step approach to drawing portraits from life. Working on the same drawing over the course of 12 weeks, students will learn how to proportionally represent and render a portrait in graphite*. Using comparative measurement, and simple linear statements, students will begin by capturing the basic contour information, and then slowly add more details as they divide light and shadow. Once the linear process is complete, students will transfer to a new sheet of paper and begin rendering. Working general to specific, students will build up the form of the portrait using ‘planes’ (a flattening of rounded forms), gradually breaking down larger planes into smaller ones, eventually fusing them to create a unified whole.
Throughout the class, a heavy emphasis will be put on the structure of a portrait from an anatomical standpoint and how this relates to form, giving students an understanding of what they are looking at. This will include the structure of the skull, the planes of the face, and the shape and structure of the features of the face.
*New students will learn the foundations of completing a portrait in graphite, but more advanced atelier students who have painted in the regular program will have the option to work on a portrait in oil paint.
John’s teaching method includes one on one critiques, demos, and lectures, where necessary.
John Asimacopoulos
John Asimacopoulos started as a student at the Academy of Realist Art Boston in September 2015, after making the decision to switch from a medical career to pursue an artistic one. His studies did not go to waste though, as they gave him knowledge, and appreciation of the human body, especially through his study of anatomy, which included dissection. John applied what he learned, and started teaching artistic anatomy, and figure drawing at the school in 2018. He graduated from the school in 2021.
He has won numerous awards, including two Art Renewal Center scholarships in 2017, and 2019, the John F. and Anna Lee Stacey Scholarship Fund in 2017, the Head Start Student Competition in 2017, and second place in the Richeson Still Life & Floral Competition in 2021. He has been involved in group shows at Bowersock Gallery in Provincetown, and the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center. He has also juried for the 3rd Annual Northeast Fine Arts Exhibition in 2021.
He is currently working on a series of narrative paintings exploring the theme of transformation.
You can find his work on Instagram here