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Loose Charcoal Painting

✏️ Build portraits with emotion, not just precision. In this 1.5+ hour demo, Frank Lombardo demonstrates how to create loose, expressive charcoal paintings by focusing on value before line. You’ll follow along as he blocks in the darks first, then refines shapes using a brush and kneadable eraser.

You’ll learn how to:

🎨 Establish form and proportion through value, not just contour lines
🖌️ Manipulate charcoal with brush and eraser for expressive, painterly effects
🌟 Capture mood and personality while maintaining a loose, spontaneous approach
📐 Compose a portrait that feels alive and emotive from first strokes to final details


Perfect for artists who want to explore expressive portraiture and develop confidence in building form with value-first techniques. 🕒 Runtime: 1.5+ hours

  • Frank Lombardo

    Instructor

  • Fundamental

    Difficulty
Meet your instructor

Francesco Lombardo

Using oil paint as his primary medium and the human figure as his primary subject, Francesco Lombardo creates work that involves repetition, movement, and layers of translucent form. His artistic influences from the past are rooted in the linear elegance of the High Renaissance, the serene yet compelling postures of classical sculpture, and the folds within folds of Baroque art. In terms of contemporary influences, Francesco references many artists including the works of Jenny Saville, Robert Liberace, and Odd Nerdrum.

Lombardo completed training in art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, receiving his B.A. in painting in 2002. Shortly thereafter he studied with the painter Odd Nerdrum in Norway for half a year. In 2004 he found long-lasting influence in the otherworldly allure of Iceland after being awarded a Fulbright to study there for one year.

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