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Portrait Drawing Workshop
Artist-Instructor: Alma Sinai
Location: Alma’s Studio
12045 Berlin-Neukölln (near Weichselplatz)
*important note: For inquiries about the workshop and if after registration the exact address wasn’t sent to you 3 days to the start of the workshop(also check spam folder), please contact a.sinai@berlindrawingroom.com
Language: English
Level: All levels are welcome, from beginners to more experienced.
**SOLD OUT**
Cost: 185 € (inc. VAT)
Materials
Materials to Bring: Various pencils from soft to hard (a set of at least 4 pencils between 2B to 9B), A4 or A3 drawing paper or sketchbook, soft graphite stick(6B or higher), kneadable eraser, hard white eraser, sharpener. Guide for where to buy art supplies.
What to Expect
In this 5-session Portrait Drawing workshop, Alma will guide you through the essential techniques for drawing portraits and hands with accuracy and expression. Using a variety of mediums—pencil, charcoal, pastel, and ink—you will focus on contour lines, tonal shading, and understanding the basic structure of the face and hands. You’ll learn how to capture proportions, the placement of facial features, and the basic forms of the hands, building a solid foundation in these essential drawing skills.
Throughout the workshop, Alma will encourage you to infuse your drawings with energy, emotion, and character, bringing each portrait and hand to life. By experimenting with different materials, you’ll discover new ways to express mood and movement, transforming your sketches into dynamic works of art. In this workshop, we’re not just focusing on structure, but also on capturing the essence of the person in front of us. It’s about channeling their unique energy and mood, and through your own visual interpretation, translating that into your drawing. You’ll explore both the technical side of drawing and how to bring personal expression into your work. A true portrait captures more than just appearance; it incorporates context, posture, clothing, and symbolism to convey identity, with various materials highlighting different facets of expression, from emotion to character.
Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your skills, this workshop offers an intimate and supportive environment to develop your drawing technique, while deepening your understanding of the human form.
Topics Covered
- Simplifying the face and hands into basic shapes and understanding proportions
- Identifying key action lines in portraits and hands
- Capturing mood and energy through tonal shading and contour lines
- Understanding the movement of joints and fingers in different hand poses
This workshop deepens your understanding of drawing portraits and hands and provides the tools to create expressive, accurate drawings. It’s perfect for anyone looking to sharpen their expressive drawing skills and visual language.
About Your Instructor:
Alma Sinai was born (1989) and raised in Tehran. After receiving an associate degree in Cinema from University of Art in Tehran she moved to the USA in 2010. She pursued a BFA degree at RISD followed by an MFA at Parsons. In the past decade alongside being active as an interdisciplinary artist she has also been working as a teaching artist.
Sinai primarily works in printmaking, drawing, video and installation and she usually focuses on binaries such as absence & presence, indoor & outdoor, visible & invisible. Alongside the repetition is one of the common aspects throughout her projects. In the process of recurrence in the print-motifs, patterns and looped video narratives with no exit points, meanings get lost, added and distorted.
She has had solo and group exhibitions internationally in venues such as Dastan Gallery, 009821 Projects, International print center New York (IPCNY), Slaturhusid Culture Center, Site:Brooklyn, University of Edinburgh and Pratt institute. In the past years Sinai has attended residency fellowship programs including Vermont Studio Center and Lunga School in Iceland. She’s been based in Berlin since October 2021 after doing an artist residency program at GlogauAIR.
