Class Portrait Demo: Shapes and simplification

Short demo for my class at Salt Lake Community College

 1 hr. to this stage.
I made slow progress because I talked through what I was doing, along with answering questions. The main idea I wanted to impart to the students was to simplify. It's not the details that make a likeness, it's the big shapes.
"My palette was very basic: titanium white, ivory black, cad. yellow lt., cad red lt., perylene red, ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, burnt sienna and raw umber.

 Stage 2
I began again after I turned the students loose on their self portraits. At this point I was able to concentrate a bit better as I didn't have to talk. I took a few minutes to redraw and fix some of the proportions and shapes that were off. I paid particular attention to the widths vs the heights and where features lined up on the vertical.

Stage 3

As you can see my drawing lines are still on the face. I knew I didn't have enough time to get into working on the face, so I spent the time working the surrounding areas. I took a photo of the model and figured I would have to work from that if I want to finish it. The camera image will give me the shape information and my painting as it is will give me the color and value information. I believe I spent about 2 hours total. I'll try to find some time to finish this portrait from the photo and then I'll post another image.