Please excuse the somewhat blurry photos. As you can imagine, at these Leffel demos there were quite a lot of spectators to work around, so we all did the best we could to at least get some type of photographic notes. Most of the next groups of photos are a bit better, but I wanted to show the progression from the beginning of David's first portrait demo.
Here he has found the head's placement within the canvas using really loose side to side strokes-- nothing definite to start, just massing in of big shapes, and then following this, placement of the next biggest shapes and anchor points (the eye sockets, the nose's shadow).

Here he has massed in the hair as one big shape, no specifics, he kept reminding us. He's still mostly using loose side to side strokes here. In this image you can also see that he's indicated where the shadows will be. These shadows will remain quiet and strong, a kind of stability for the light, which then can 'dance' all around. He told us that shadows are definitive shapes, and should never vary in value--that the only thing that should ever modify a shadow is reflected light (whereas the light shapes can vary in value all the way from a highlight down to the darkest light where it meets the shadow [half-tone]).

In this image, after David has finished painting in his shadows, big shapes, and some of the background, he moves into the light shapes. Here in the light is where he piles on the paint-- he lets his impasto in the light make big breaks off of the surface in order to enhance the sense of volume. This is one of the things that I love most about his work, this amazing celebration of oil paint's inherent qualities. Here he also keeps much of his paint to a minimal color, reserving his bright, saturated colors for areas he wishes to take the eye to, and fleshier areas such as the cheeks. He told us to look for the colors of the shadows and of the air, and then to work the local colors into these.

And here is a poor image of the finished demo, but at least you can get some idea of how he finished it.

And finally here is my first portrait of the week, where I feel like I got at the shadow/light part of it, but not at the color part of it (still too much color everywhere...who isn't seduced by color?)