For the class project I'd recommend either grabbing a friend who'd be willing to sit for you for a few hours, but in case thats not realistic, working from photos is totally fine.

If you're absolutely new to oils, you may find it easier to work monochromatically in black and white, or even burnt umber and white. For those comfortable enough with the medium, I do recommend a limited palette as a starting point, but you're free to use whatever you like.

In terms of time, I'd recommend spending anywhere from 3-4 hours on a sketch as I feel its enough time just to get enough information without feeling like you have to put in too many details. Portrait sketching like this is a great way to get an abbreviated sketch of a person and allows you to clock in a lot of practice in a short amount of time instead of committing to a longer portrait.

Peter Wright

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