Workshop | Portrait drawing from life with Michele Del Campo

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An engaging workshop with visiting Residency Exchange Artist, Michele Del Campo, whose own art practice includes portraiture and the figure in multi-media including drawing and painting.

What to expect: In this engaging portrait drawing workshop, participants will take turns sitting as the model for 15 minutes, while the rest of the group will capture their likeness with guidance from the artist.

Through brief demonstrations, the artist will share his particular approach and technique, covering where to begin, how to find the structure and how to build the portrait from shades rather than lines.

The focus will be on bringing a portrait to life by emphasizing essence over detail.

All materials provided: Various Drawing Pencils, Paper, Eraser, Pencil Sharpener

This workshop is open to all skill levels and encourages individual expression alongside technical growth.

Drawing from life enhances the ability to observe, understand form and character and capture energy. By switching between drawing and posing, participants will also gain insight into the experience of being a model and the collaborative dynamic between artist and subject.

About the teaching artist:

Michele grew up in San Nicandro Garganico, a small town in southern Italy. Isolated in the countryside, he would spend his time drawing and cycling long distances, when not at school. When he was 18 his family moved to Milan, and after beginning to study Fine Arts, disappointed with the learning, at the age of 20 he began a pilgrimage which led him to live in many places around the world. After studying Illustration in Falmouth (England) and then Dundee (Scotland) he went to Madrid (Spain) where he resumed his studies in Fine Arts and at the same time he began exhibiting in art galleries. In 2006 he won the most prestigious painting prize in Spain, the “Premio BMW”, and in 2007 he finished his Master of Fine Arts.

In 2008 he moved to London, where he had several solo exhibitions, and in 2016 to Glasgow (Scotland). In this city, where there is hardly any of the sun that he grew up with, and while he was preparing solo exhibitions for international galleries in Lima (Perú), Madrid (Spain) or San Francisco (USA), he decided there was no point in struggling to find a good artist studio and commit to spending years in the same place. He stopped accumulating objects, got rid of possessions and began to travel and paint wherever he was, and then take the rolled-up canvases to the galleries with which he collaborated. In 2017 he began to travel with two suitcases and a tube for the canvases, where he captured the inspiration found in each place. In 2023 Del Campo moved to Miami. Del Campo has had solo shows in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, London, Milan, Lugano, Lima, San Francisco and Dallas, and has participated in group shows and art fairs in Europe, Asia, the United States and Latin America.

In his art, locations remain unidentifiable, as he frequently blends aspects from one city with those of another. Instead, his primary emphasis lies on individuals, their narratives, connections, and emotions, which surpass geographical boundaries and manifest in a more extensive human encounter.

He paints people his friends and family, and the people he meets in his travels, and fondly cultivates his circle without borders. His paintings, far from simply seeking to capture a resemblance with his sitters or the reality as it is, strive to construct a narrative. He gets inspiration from the stories of his sitters, to speak about the uprooting, the zest for life, the solitude and the awareness of the ephemeral.

In his recent paintings, he’s transcending realism, crafting compositions that embody fragments of a reality formed by diverse moments and places. This connection mirrors the way we engage with images nowadays.

More info micheledelcampo.com