City Lit Art School — Art Classes in London  

A course for intermediate and experienced printmakers wanting to build on previous experience and experiment with process to consolidate and hone technical skills. The focus is on colour application, advanced intaglio processes, realising personal projects and the production of high quality prints.

On this course you will develop your creativity, your personal artistic understanding, and a body of contemporary art work at an advanced level through the experimental exploration of a personal project. The course is facilitated by practicing artists and theorists, who will support you through guided critical and creative research, experimental workshops, critical studies, studio practice and tutorials.

Interested in a career in Children’s Book Illustration, or advancing your practice to the next level? With the guidance and support of your tutors, you will have the opportunity to engage with experienced industry professionals, and develop your practice and personal visual vocabulary to a professional standard.







Visitors on previous years have included:



- Davinia Andrew-Lynch, Curtis Browne Agency



- Helen Chapman, Art director Penguin Random House, Bloomsbury, Little Tiger Press, DK & Penguin



- Rebecca Garrill Art Director Andersen Press



- Margaret Hope, art director MacMillan Books



- Anne McNeill, Editorial director Random House and Penguin books



- Rachel Petty, former editorial director Macmillan Children's Books, currently author/illustrator agent at the Blair Partnership



- Arabella Stein, Managing Director, Bright Agency



- Millie Van Grutten RCW Literary Agency.

A multi-disciplinary course that will help broaden your skills and experience. Record, imagine, visualise, transform,



narrate and develop through a series of practical projects. This exciting course is designed to help you place drawing at the centre of your chosen artistic discipline.



This course requires a pre-enrolment application. Please click 'Start Assessment' on the right-hand side of this page to start your application.

This year-long advanced course is aimed at artist-printmakers who wish to develop a sustainable personal practice through the medium of print. With the support of expert tutors, you will be guided through experimental, practice-based research and developmental tasks that challenge your preconceptions of print media including etching, screen-printing, lithography and relief. You will eventually focus on a longer project that encourage both a personal enquiry and the development of an individual methodology. The course involves theoretical, contextual and practical components.

Unlock your creative potential in the Advanced Printmaking Personal Project Development course! This engaging programme invites you to extend your printmaking practice while developing a substantial personal project. Over the length of the course you will explore advanced printmaking techniques, refine your artistic voice, and produce a body of finished work.

Representation of the human form offers inexhaustible potential for expression and for the communication of ideas. This is an exciting advanced course for those with experience of working with the figure and/or portrait who would like the challenge of exploring new perspectives on the figurative tradition through drawing, painting and and a range of contemporary and mixed media.

A sketchbook is a great place to try things out, make mistakes and take risks - all in the nature of experimentation. An introduction to exploring creative mixed-media, drawing and mark-making techniques with confidence which can build personal ideas for further development.



Suitable for beginners as well as those with some previous drawing experience who would like to start using a sketchbook.

Year 3 (VM553) is the culmination of the CLFA course and combines practical studio sessions with a professional and externally focussed remit designed to enable you to further refine your creative work and enhance your professional capabilities in the development of an independent artistic practice. The course encourages students to find and pursue external opportunities relevant to their practice such as organising an exhibition or collaborating with external organisations.



Building upon and consolidating the learnings gained in year 1 and 2 of CLFA, or on your experience of practicing and studying to an equivalent level, you will pursue an individual, self-motivated route through year 3. This will be based upon an existing portfolio, defined intentions, and ongoing creative projects. The Year 3 course is designed to support individual development of new artwork that extends an existing creative practice. It will also allow you to enhance this with an understanding of professional activities that might include the process of making funding applications, finding exhibition opportunities, or developing external relationships. You will be able to engage with practicing artist/tutors in group critiques, one-to-one tutorials, seminars, and self-motivated studio production sessions in which you can explore and refine your skills and creative ideas. There will be engagement with ideas and contexts, and professional practice-based sessions that support the development of your creative work so that it can be sustained beyond the duration of the course.







Note: this course runs on Saturday daytimes fortnightly, and occasional Sundays.

This course introduces you to new ways of combining printmaking with creative thinking by using multiple printmaking techniques and processes, layering them to produce compositions that can be made into artworks to take away with you.

Produce your own hand dyed fabrics using botanical dye techniques.

From the early 20th century onwards, the advent of ‘mass’ media – newspapers, magazines, leaflets, packaging - led to some of the most innovative artistic movements in Western culture: Dada, Surrealism, Bauhaus, Punk.







Arguably, these movements (all of which centralised ‘collage’), have had more of a bearing on contemporary graphic design than anything else. Think of the countless adverts, websites, and social media posts which owe a debt to Jamie Reid’s ‘Sex Pistols’ album designs (which, in turn, owe their existence to the Dadaists).







The methodology of collage should therefore play a role in any good design practice.







Our Workshops enable you to take a deep dive into a specific process, media or tool.



They throw the spotlight onto niche areas of the visual communication field, enabling you to hone higher-level skills and gain deeper insights.







Workshops tend to have a practical focus, with little or no theory or context, although this varies by course.

Do you have boxes of old prints, negatives or transparencies gathering dust that you'd love to have digitised? Learn how to get your archive onto your computer using different methods from flatbed and film scanners to a digital camera.

City Lit Studios provide time each week for you to commit to working on a personal project or portfolio, alongside your peers. A tutor will be on-hand to provide insights and guidance, as and when you need it.







Studios are for experienced learners with a burgeoning creative practice they wish to hone, in a supportive environment. For example, those who have completed a Beginners and Developing course in a relevant subject, or have equivalent industry experience.