In week five, Steve Huston focuses on creating dynamic figure sketches and expressive portrait studies in ink and gouache. You’ll start with warm-up figure sketches in fountain pen, using gestural lines and overlapping forms to explore movement and relationships between poses. Steve then guides you through compositional thumbnails for a portrait study, teaching you to experiment with color, edge quality, and mood. By the end of this lesson, you’ll gain confidence in capturing figures and portraits with fluid, expressive brushstrokes, and thoughtful composition.

Throughout this course, you’ll have access to the NMA community for feedback and critiques to improve your work as you progress.