This course traces the developments and trends, which dominated European art, from the dawn of the Renaissance in the early 15th Century, through to the first decades of the 19th Century when Romanticism came to the fore in both art and literature. We will explore the social, cultural and political factors, which contributed to the practices of painters and sculptors from a range of European locations. We will discover how many of these styles were often a reaction against those preceding them.

This course traces the developments and trends, which dominated European art, from the dawn of the Renaissance in the early 15th Century, through to the first decades of the 19th Century when Romanticism came to the fore in both art and literature. We will explore the social, cultural and political factors, which contributed to the practices of painters and sculptors from a range of European locations. We will discover how many of these styles were often a reaction against those preceding them.

This is an interesting course where you’ll combine both writing and illustrating to create your own engaging children’s story. The first five weeks of the course are focused on writing the first draft of your story, including brainstorming a plot, coming up with character designs and partially scripting your story. You’ll develop ideas for a page-turning script and plan a well composed storyboard. In the second half of the course, you will focus on developing and refining your visuals, experimenting with colour pencil, watercolour and mixed media to find the best way to bring your story to life. By the end of the course, you will have a final set of illustrations, a storyboard, several pages of page layout experiments and an individual action plan to help you turn your story plans into a finished sample for a publisher. Our tutor Rachael Ball is a published author and an experienced teacher. Her book ‘The Inflatable Woman’ was a Guardian Best Graphic Novel in 2015.

This five-week ONLINE drawing course is ideal for beginners as well as those wanting to improve their knowledge and confidence from the ground up. Your experienced tutor will guide you through various exercises introducing you to key drawing issues, including line, value, form and composition. By the end of the course you will have gained a practical understanding of drawing fundamentals, built up a sketchbook bursting with notes, observational studies and reference sketches, and have at least one fully composed piece.  

This five-week ONLINE course is a  structured and systematic course for those who have never painted before and for those who want to reinforce their basic oil skills or to move on to using oil paints having used acrylics or water-based media.  The course will take you through tone, colour, portraiture and landscape. Tailored to online learning the course will have instructional videos and online material each week to complement the set zoom based class.

This five-week taught ONLINE course is for those who have never painted before or want to reassess their approach to painting. Students learn to see colour, shape and tone, and to relate all these elements together in compositions. This course aims to foster self-confidence and enjoyment of painting in a stimulating environment as well as to give you confidence in putting brush to canvas, mixing colour, translating from 3D to 2D or using 2D images to portray your interpretation of that image in a confident and expressive way.

‘This is a well structured course giving the students opportunity to work from the model and learn a method based approach to portrait painting. The emphasis will be on learning to see form and colour accurately through the medium of oil paint. Students will develop a series of artworks, from studies and sketches to more detailed works

This four-day  ONLINE course is a  wonderful opportunity to join an intensive course that will introduce you to oil painting. It is well structured and systematic course for those who have never painted before and for those who want to reinforce their basic oil skills or to move on to using oil paints having used acrylics or water-based media.  You will gain confidence in working with oil paints through series of exercises concentrating on tone and colour in Still Life as well as Life Painting.

This is a fun day-long taster course in watercolour painting for those who may be considering a longer evening or daytime course and are wondering how much they will enjoy it. Throughout the day the tutor will lead the class in numerous short demonstrations , followed by sort practical painting sessions to introduce you to the common techniques used in watercolour painting. The tutor will demonstrate how to mix colour with an emphasis on working tonally, and the importance of  planning the sequences needed for a work on paper. You will make many 'sketchbook style' explorations in the morning (although these may be done on sheets of paper), learn about paper varieties, paint types and some additional materials, whilst practically manipulating watercolour paint. During a part of the afternoon students will have the opportunity to apply their learning and paint from a selection of still life items*. Tutor feedback and support will be constant during this longer afternoon painting session. A short review of learning will complete the day. Throughout the day you will be encouraged to play and enjoy the application of paint whist also developing an understanding of ways of working from observation. *This course is remotely taught. A list of essential materials and still life items will be provided. Please plan ahead to gain the most from your day. The course price was adjusted to exclude price of the materials which are usually provided by the Academy.

This 10-weeks long ONLINE course taught by Carl Randall will be exploring processes behind portrait painting. Using a simplified, structured, and step-by-step approach, students will learn the skills and techniques necessary to create convincing portrait paintings. Creating portraits that have a convincing sense of shape, form, tone, and colour is difficult to do, and this course looks at various techniques that artists can use to do this. By interpreting the human head into its abstract elements (shape, tone & colour), you will gain confidence in how to paint portraits in a structured and methodical manner. The course offers a balance in applications of paint: some lessons in which a more academic, graphic and illustrative approach is required (techniques often used by the Old Masters); and others that are more contemporary, which focus on thick paint, texture, gesture and brush marks.

This 10-weeks long ONLINE course taught by Ed Sutcliffe will help you to understand processes and techniques used in painting from photographs.

You'll explore the skills required to achieve effective results when working from photographs instead of from life. You will consider the problems of painting from photographs and ways of overcoming these, as well the advantages of working from photographs. The course will Introduce the skills needed to produce photorealistic images, but doesn’t limit you to painting in this way.

This course is for all levels from beginners to advanced. Students will learn a variety of different watercolour techniques. The tutor will meet each individual student at whatever level they are at. Students will have the option of working from their own set ups at home or working from images the tutor shares . The tutor will give general class demonstrations which will include slide presentations, more advanced students can carry on with their own work although they may find it helpful to go over the basic techniques again. The course is fairly structured starting with tonal paintings in the first two weeks before learning basic colour theory. More experienced students who feel that they already know colour theory will be set different exercises to do. The tutor will encourage you to work from observation whilst also exploring other artists’ work whilst developing fundamental tonal skills. The tutor strongly recommends completing a beginners drawing course or having basic drawing skills before signing up for this course.