In the Flesh: Mastering Color in the Portrait Workshop

In the Flesh: Mastering Color in the Portrait Workshop - In Person

Manu Saluja | Fall 2026 | Oct 16 - 18

Class Description:

Have you ever struggled to create skin tones that are luminous and colorful when painting a portrait?

Join CFA and MFA Faculty, Manu Saluja, in this three-day workshop as she offers essential strategies to mix flesh tones with confidence as you work from the live model. The key to making believable complexions is an understanding of hue, value, and chroma. In this workshop you will learn how to translate light and shade into color, how to control your oil colors to create a variety of skin tones, and add inventive mixtures that lead to a vibrant, dimensional finish. Students will be shown key proportions and structure of the head, neck and shoulders to achieve likeness. While the workshop is geared towards the painted portrait in oil, the color information is invaluable for all genres from landscape to figure painting. Demonstrations, lectures/discussions included.

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Workshop Dates:

Scheduled occurrences for this class are as follows:

Day	Date	Time
Day 1:	10/16/2026	2 pm - 5 pm ET
Day 2:	10/17/2026	10 am - 5 pm ET
Day 3:	10/18/2026	10 am - 5 pm ET

Before Class - Welcome & How to Prepare for Class
Day 1 - Drawing the Portrait, Color Theory and Your Palette
Day 2 - The “Lay-In” Stage
Day 3 - Finishing Touches

$695.00
In-Person
3 Days
Beginner to Advanced

Meet Your Instructor

Manu Saluja

Instructor

Manu Saluja received her MFA from the New York Academy of Art, and her BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts where she was mentored by John Frederick Murray. Saluja’s work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery (London), the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art (Wisconsin), and the Butler Institute of American Art (Ohio). Winner of the 2019 BP Portrait Travel Award, her resulting paintings were exhibited at the Aberdeen Art Gallery in Scotland in 2020. Saluja has paintings in public and private collections throughout the U.S., Canada, U.K., and India. In 2023 she was unanimously selected by Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA to paint a life-size portrait of Sojourner Truth now permanently on view in the Grand Portrait Gallery. She has exhibited her work with numerous galleries including 33 Contemporary, James Baird, Sugarlift, Abend and Dacia, and has been featured in publications such as Huffington Post, Fast Company Design, American Art Collector, Realism Today, Fine Art Connoisseur, News India Times, and Artists & Illustrators. Saluja has taught drawing and painting for over 15 years with courses at NYAA, Montclair State University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the Long Island Academy of Fine Art. Born in Brooklyn in 1971, and a longtime resident of Queens, Saluja currently lives and works in Long Island, NY.