Wartook artist Sue Taylor said Penrose was an excellent teacher who gave everyone individual time.

She said the workshop focused on a modern style of portrait, using acrylic paint because it dried quicker and was more suited for a class.

"He went through how to position the head on the page and how to quickly draw and image and put in the shadows and darker areas," she said.

"He emphasised keeping the face as a series of shapes.

"You weren't really drawing the person, more a series of shapes."

Taylor said Penrose put a lot of detail into colour mixing, using only red, yellow, green and white.

"Particularly for beginners, it keeps things simple and you really learn to mix skin colours," she said.

"We spent time on the various shades there are in skin colours."

Taylor said while she had not concentrated on portraits before, she would now look to paint family portraits and improve her technique.