First Day of Painting Class

Today was my first day teaching Intro to Painting for the semester. The first project/exercise I always have students do is a Rembrandt self-portrait exercise, starting the first day in monochrome - just a single earth color brown so they get the hang of handling paint in it’s various stages of dilution without wrestling with a lot of colors. The second day is an introduction to a limited palette for the flesh tones, painted over top of the underpainting from the first day. By the end of day two, they have a passable rendition, and a working knowledge of one way to create a painting from start to finish. I did a demo for them, showing what to do, and then started another painted sketch while they worked on their Rembrandt underpaintings. Above is my second sketch. Below is my demo.