Portrait Painting
with Rogier Willems
🗓️ August 23rd to 29th 2026
🎨 Portrait Painting
Full Board Accommodation: 1890€ to 2600€ for 6 nights based on room choice & single or shared occupancy.
Tutor's Fee: 500€
Partners & family may join the trip as non-participating guests without the teaching fee.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Winner of the William Lock Portrait Prize 2025
Course Description
In this 5 days course we explore the human face by quick sketches, technical challenges, focused studies and a full understanding of how to approach the art of portrait painting artistically. Inspired by several different local models you make sketches, quick portraits, tonal studies and some more elaborated portraits, all in oils.
On the one hand, this course discusses important (technical) aspects of portrait painting, such as tone, construction, composition and brushwork. In addition, a lot of attention is paid to the way you personally paint; I encourage a loose, free approach with an emphasis on expression. Participants are challenged to take risks and deviate from the beaten track and to strive for powerful paintings with as much individuality as possible.
The course is in English and Dutch. Best suited for painters with some experience. Material is oil paint on linen or oil paint paper.
Paints, colours and materials required to bring yourself:
Burned Siena, ultramarine blue, raw umber, green earth, carmine red/ rose madder, yellow ochre, cadmium red medium, titanium white, mixed white and cadmium yellow. Linseed oil and sturdy pig bristle brushes, at least 1 cm wide but also a few wider ones. Only organic and odorless thinners are allowed, or Gamsol. Also you need some charcoal and a white soft crayon or pastel. And pieces of cloth to wipe your brushes with. You also have to bring oil-painting paper, canvasses or canvas-boards and some toned paper to draw on.
About Rogier
Willems’ oeuvre predominantly consists of portraits, rendered in the classical medium of oil paint. The subjects of his compositions are those who personally captivate him —individuals he holds in high regard or those who exert a magnetic allure. Willems finds himself particularly drawn to the complexity and duality inherent within these individuals.
Possessing an unconventional stance towards the conventional art scene, Willems rarely participates in exhibitions and holds an innate resistance towards commission-based work. His motivations for creating art are not driven by accolades or public recognition. Although he did win the William Lock Prize for best Portrait, an honour given to him by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2025 and was long listed twice for the BP Award by the National Portrait Gallery London. Recently he was shortlisted for the Almenara Prize 2025 in Spain. But rather, he finds himself more engaged with the journey of creation and the quest for artistic mastery. The works of his fellow artists, though, hold a special place in his heart, serving as a wellspring of inspiration and a mirror reflecting his artistic journey.
The act of painting, for Willems, is synonymous with liberation—a process that offers him boundless freedom and a platform to articulate his thoughts and emotions. He cherishes this personal exploration and chooses to maintain a sense of privacy around it, an approach that mirrors his personality and resonates with his artistic principles.
Born in Dordrecht 1969, raised and still lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Self-taught painter. Worked for 25 years as a set designer for the theatre for numerous companies. For many years he worked as art teacher at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and at the Wackers Academy in Amsterdam. Used to work in series with specific themes concerning politics and religion. Now focussing on just the portrait and nudes without further narrative context. He teaches often abroad, in Belgium, the UK, Portugal, Swiss and France.
He lives and works near Amsterdam with his girlfriend and two young daughters. In his spacious studio (Studio Willems) he paints and teaches with the help of Pieternel Linssen, his assisting companion in business.