Drawing and Painting the Figure from Life
with Alan McGowan

🗓️ October 18th - 25th 2027 at our other venue Borgo Burlamacchi

🎨 Oil Paint

Language: English

Full Board Accommodation: from €2,490 for 7 nights

Tutor's Workshop Fee: €500

Partners & family may join the trip as non-participating guests without the workshop fee.

Alan's Website

Accommodation

Course Description

Develop your skills in figurative drawing and painting in this immersive five-day workshop, exploring the human form through observation, expressive mark-making and a deeper understanding of artistic technique.

Working directly from life models, you will explore a range of approaches to drawing and painting, from rapid studies to longer, more considered compositions. Through charcoal, pastel and oil paint, Alan will guide you in developing your observational skills while encouraging a more personal, expressive and individual approach to your work.

The first two days will focus on drawing, exploring different ways of understanding and representing the figure. You will investigate working from within the form, using mass, line and tonal value, as well as drawing with light. The following three days will concentrate on painting, introducing approaches to drawing with oil paint, exploring colour and developing more sustained figurative compositions.

Throughout the workshop, you will consider the relationship between accurate observation and creative freedom. Through experimentation with materials and technique, you will explore how mistakes, mark-making and different levels of finish can contribute to atmosphere, emotion and the character of a painting.

Workshop programme

Day 1 – Approaches to Drawing: Introduction to drawing the figure, exploring how to work from within the form, alongside mass, shape and tonal value.

Day 2 – Light and Tonal Value: Developing an understanding of light, shadow and tonal relationships when drawing the figure.

Day 3 – Drawing with Paint and Pastel: Exploring expressive drawing techniques using oil paint and pastel, alongside two half-day life model poses.

Day 4 – Figurative Painting: A full day dedicated to developing a painting from life, exploring composition, colour and expressive technique.

Day 5 – Developing Your Oil Painting: A further day of oil painting, consolidating the week's learning and developing a more individual approach to figurative work.

Individual Guidance and Artistic Inspiration

Students will receive regular one-to-one guidance and feedback from Alan throughout the workshop, helping them identify areas for development and push their work further. Presentations of historical and contemporary figurative artists will provide additional inspiration and context, encouraging discussion and new ways of approaching the subject.

Whether you are looking to strengthen your life drawing skills, develop your figurative painting technique or explore a more expressive and personal visual language, this workshop offers an opportunity to deepen your understanding of the human figure and expand your creative potential.

About Alan McGowan

Alan McGowan is a Scottish artist whose figurative life painting is noted for its expressive brushwork and dynamic draughtsmanship, and is the author of ‘Expressive Life Drawing’ published by Crowood Press in 2026.

His paintings have featured at the National Portrait Galleries in London and Edinburgh, the Threadneedle Prize for Figurative Art, the Society of Portrait Sculptors exhibition and The Ruth Borchard self portrait exhibition as well as regularly at the Royal Scottish Academy.

He has taught at a number of art institutions including the National Portrait Gallery London, The Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and Edinburgh College of Art. He has exhibited widely in the UK, regularly at the Royal Scottish Academy, and in New York, Lisbon, Helsinki, South Korea and Prague, and his work appears in several public collections including that of the Royal Scottish Academy and Stirling University.