The Noir Portrait: Drawing With Charcoal
Adult Multi-Week | Registration opens 4/9/2025 9:00 AM EDT
Learn how to make realistic portraits using the beautiful, painterly medium of charcoal on toned paper. This class teaches traditional academic concepts, but in an encouraging open environment conducive to learning. We will examine how to successfully rep
- This class does not meet on 6/23.
Accessibility notes: Many artmaking processes require the ability to sit or stand for extended periods of time, fine motor skills/finger dexterity, repetitive motions, vision, and some amount of physical strength. VisArts values making classes accessible to everyone, and is always happy to work with students to make accommodations when possible. Please reach out to info@visarts.org with specific questions related to accessibility or accommodations.
Salis asks students to stand at standing easels and to step back a few steps from easel and walk forward to draw. Accommodations can be made if someone can draw while seated, but the class may be more challenging for them. Also, good vision (or glasses with a recent prescription) is very helpful. Students with vision issues could find her classes more challenging.
Classes are confirmed one week prior to the start date. In order to help us confirm classes, please register as early as possible.
On-site courses do not come with studio access outside of class time. Paid open studio access is available through our Studio Access Program. Please visit visarts.org for more information.
Instructor speaks Spanish, but the class is held in English.
Salis Dembling
Salis was raised in New York City and Massachusetts and spent formative years in L.A. and South America. She's mixed/Black and the daughter of Black Historian Sterling Stuckey and granddaughter of poet Elma Stuckey She studied drawing and sculpture at Columbia University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree. She studied painting and illustration at The School of Visual Arts and in the studio of portrait painter John Murray, both in New York as well. She completed the professional four year atelier painting program and teacher training program at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia. As well as being a visual artist she is a musician/composer. She co-founded art and activism collectives and a radical community center called Better than Television.