Painting & Drawing Workshops

Hone your skills with intensive specialized instruction!

Shane periodically teaches workshops with demonstrations and personalized instruction as a way to bring more specialized attention to disciplines of representational realism in drawing and painting. Workshops are a fun way for students to mutually benefit from step-by-step instruction as they are facing the challenges of a similar subject.

Portrait Oil Painting
2-day Workshop

portrait painting of a man from life by Shane McDonald
Shane paints a live male model for a portrait demonstration

LIMITED TO 6 STUDENTS

Experience painting with oils is highly suggested.

Step-by-step guidance painting a portrait from a live model

Shane will teach participants to draw and paint the human head from a live model with accurate proportions, tonal values, and color to depict a convincing three-dimensional illusion. Using Shane’s method of efficient palette mixing of flesh tones, students will map their drawings accurately and block in lights and shadows using a tonal "couche" layer before painting the model's subtle facial features. Lastly, students will refine and render the intricate forms of facial features, neck-line clothing, and hair.

Students will be need to bring:

  • two 20 x 16 or 16 x 12 inches canvas, linen, or smooth wood panels for final portrait
  • two sheets of white drawing paper or a drawing pad which is the same dimensions as your final portrait ground
  • glass or wooden palette
  • selection of 4-5 long-handled brushes (filberts, flats, and rounds) ranging in widths of 1/8th-inch to 1-inch
  • metal or glass jar for Gamsol mineral spirits
  • Oil colors:
    • Titanium White
    • Cadmium Yellow Light
    • Cadmium Red Medium
    • Permanent Alizarin Crimson [or Alizarine Crimson hue]
    • Ultramarine Blue
    • Cerulean Blue
    • Permanent Sap Green [or Sap Green hue]

Pre-payment is required to register. Want to pay by cash or check? Email Shane McDonald or leave a voicemail at (770) 218-0676 to let him know you're stopping by to pay or that the check is in the mail.

Figure Drawing
1-Day Workshop

figure drawing workshop with clothed model
Figure drawing workshop with clothed model at Shane McDonald Studios

LIMITED TO 9 STUDENTS

Join Shane this December for an in-depth Figure Drawing workshop designed to refine your approach to drawing the human figure from a live model. The session will kick off with exercises and demonstrations on general human proportions, followed by dynamic gesture drawings to explore movement, scale, and balance. You’ll then work through several 10-minute drawings, focusing on armature angles, positive/negative space, and contour lines. Shane will guide you through longer 20-minute sessions to help you tackle light and shadow, depth, foreshortening, and the complexities of the head, hands and feet. The workshop will conclude with a 50-minute drawing that ties together everything you'll have learned. Don’t miss this opportunity to sharpen your figure drawing skills in Shane's art studio!

Students will be need to bring:

  • vine charcoal sticks
  • soft and extra soft charcoal pencils
  • compressed charcoal sticks
  • light pastel/conté crayon
  • assortment of blending stumps (tortillons)
  • kneaded eraser
  • 18 x 24 inches newsprint pad (smooth finish preferred)
  • 18 x 24 inches white drawing paper/pad
Payment and Registration

Pre-payment is required to register. Want to pay by cash or check? Email Shane McDonald or leave a voicemail at (770) 218-0676 to let him know you're stopping by to pay or that the check is in the mail.