Portraiture

Portraiture

Class | FULL

87 Mountain Road West Hartford, CT 06107 United States
Upstairs
All
9/9/2025-11/11/2025
1:00 PM-4:00 PM EDT on Tue
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$260.00
$240.00

Portraiture

Class | FULL

Work with renowned CT/NYC portrait painter, Antony Zito, whose classes are fun and informal but with a powerful emphasis on gaining skills and knowledge. Open to all levels, this weekly course will guide you through the creation of an in-depth portrait using acrylic paint on canvas. Our main focus will be to achieve a balanced sense of proportion and a distinct likeness, while exploring expressionistic mark-making techniques and - for the  more advanced students - infusing the work with an emotional charge. We will dive into the intense problem solving aspects of composition, line vs. form, and have a lot of fun resolving our pieces through group critiques and one-on-one discussions. Antony is also available to students for individual critiques via email. Join our roster of returning and dedicated artists who will happily tell you how insightful, engaging, thought-provoking and fun this class is!  

  • Materials List: 

    - Primed canvas or canvas board (16” x 20” or so) 

    - Acrylic paints including: raw umber, yellow ochre, naples yellow, naples yellow light (or other flesh-tone/pale  orange), buff titanium (or other off-white), white, a red & orange, other colors of your choice - Brushes (small medium, large) 

    - Rag, water cup, and palette (can be anything: paper plate, etc.) 

    - Full-color high-quality print of a face 8.5” x 11” or larger: face must be well-lit, preferably frontal and without teeth showing. More advanced artists can choose more dramatically posed and lighted images since these types of portraits are much more difficult to render.  All artists should bring in an artful and distinctive photo as opposed to a poorly lit, random snapshot.

Antony Zito

Hailing from the woods of Northern Connecticut, Zito has spent 30 years on New York’s Lower East Side. Zito ran a gallery and portrait studio on Ludlow Street through 2006.  To New Yorkers, his portraits of the local characters illustrate a sweeping line through the legendary period after the dust settled from the 80s East Village art scene. The New York Post has called his portrait paintings “sensual” and his renderings of people on recycled materials other than canvas have prompted The Village Voice to refer to him as “a master of the found object”. His work has been exhibited and collected throughout the US, UK, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and Japan. Zito’s portraits and other artwork appear in Jim Jarmusch’s films, “Coffee and Cigarettes” and “Broken Flowers”.  Zito is currently working on a documentary film illuminating his corner of the East Village & LES in the 1990s early aughts.
www.zitogallery.com