Drawing Courses in London
At City Lit, we have a variety of drawing courses, delivered in our bright, modern studios for students to create and develop a body of drawing work. Supported by our team of experienced and expert tutors, we offer students both a practical guide and an informative insight, providing an opportunity for all levels to explore traditional and contemporary styles of drawing.
We have classes for everyone, whether you’re a complete beginner and you want an introduction to drawing; or you’re at an intermediate or higher level and you want classes that focus on developing advanced drawing skills such as mark making techniques, experimental approaches and use of colour, tone and shade within these disciplines.
Our courses are specially designed to offer you support in overcoming any frustrations, learning new skills and helping you achieve your personal creative goals.
We host exhibitions throughout the year at City Lit Gallery where our students showcase their amazing work.
To arrange a conversation with our drawing coordinator about your interests, options and courses available, please contact our Visual Arts team at visualarts@citylit.ac.uk
- Oil painting: focus on light and shade
Course start date: Fri 7 Nov 2025 (and 1 other date)Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Lindsay PickettThis oil painting course takes inspiration from the moody and luminous imagery of classic Film Noir such as ‘The Third Man’. Explore composition, tonal contrast and light transitions, using a range of different oil techniques to create visually dramatic paintings.
Full fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: part 2Course start date: Fri 9 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Hugo CookFollow-on course from the Introduction. This four-week course uses British Museum objects related to ancient Egypt to broaden and deepen students' knowledge of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. The course will be held in Covent Garden, with frequent visits to the British Museum.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00 - Design with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign Course start date: Sun 16 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Gita HahnA fun and challenging introduction to these three programs, regularly used together for everything from infographics to packaging and magazine work. Learn how to integrate vector graphics, photographic images and page layout and design. - Effective counselling skills for speech and language therapistsCourse start date: Wed 19 Nov 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Vivien Grant-Jones, Anita McKiernan, Samantha SimpsonDesigned for SLTs working with any client group, this interactive workshop will help you develop practical counselling skills. Topics include developing the therapeutic relationship, boundaries, ways of responding, paraphrasing, reflecting, questioning, immediacy, self disclosure and loss.Full fee £499.00 Senior fee £499.00 Concession £499.00 - Becoming confident on PowerPoint 365 (beginner)Course start date: Thu 27 Nov 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Do you want to learn how to create presentations? Are you completely new to PowerPoint? Can you use some PowerPoint features but want to expand your skills? On this course you will learn the essential elements of how to create an effective and engaging presentation from creating slides and slideshows from scratch, to using templates, to appropriate use of images and text. You will focus not only on the specific functions of PowerPoint but also what makes a presentation successful.
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £35.00 - Carving in wood Course start date: Tue 13 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexandra Harley.Full fee £529.00 Senior fee £423.00 Concession £344.00 - Life painting: experimental approaches Course start date: Thu 29 Jan 2026 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Amanda BrackenExplore imaginative, dynamic approaches to painting the figure using a variety of approaches: be inspired by new ways of seeing and access innovative ways of approaching your life painting. Suitable for those with some previous life drawing experience.
Full fee £259.00 Senior fee £207.00 Concession £168.00 - Craft focus: voice and dialogue in fiction Course start date: Sun 15 Feb 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Rosie ChardAll fiction must speak to us as readers. It must communicate atmosphere and plot, character and layers of meaning with a unique 'voice'. Characters must also sound like themselves with dialogue that compels and convinces. Learn the fundamentals of voice and dialogue in this one-day course.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £40.00 - Autobiography into fiction Course start date: Thu 26 Feb 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Nick BarlayThis 6-week course will help you develop techniques for transforming personal experience into fiction. You'll have the opportunity to improve your writing skills as well as your ability to give and use constructive criticism in a workshop environment. - Introduction to casting and mould making Course start date: Fri 17 Apr 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Valerie MerloBreak the mould - try your hand at the techniques of mould making and casting as practised by sculptors, prop makers and designers. Under the guidance of highly experienced industry professional in our fully equipped sculpture studio, explore making plaster and rubber moulds. Then learn how to cast from them in plaster of Paris and cement. - Printmaking into bookbinding Course start date: Mon 12 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Claire Hynds, Margo Van RooyenExplore the three dimensional possibilities of print. This course will encourage you to develop your initial ideas through experiments with printmaking techniques and bookbinding structures to create an artist’s book. Some printmaking and/or bookbinding experience may be beneficial but not essential.Full fee £279.00 Senior fee £223.00 Concession £181.00 - Digital video editing: stage 2 Course start date: Wed 14 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Lily MarkiewiczImprove, and speed up your process and learn to use vital techniques for improving your edits. Explore building a better narrative structure and find out about essentials like screen-directionality, POV constructions and rhythm building.Full fee £269.00 Senior fee £215.00 Concession £175.00 - Speak Shakespeare monologues and scenes: comediesCourse start date: Wed 22 Apr 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Vernon ThompsonDo you enjoy speaking Shakespeare or would you like to enjoy it? Whether you are preparing a Shakespearean monologue for audition or simply have an interest in their structure, rhythm and poetry, this course enables you to work on and speak monologues from the Comedies with confidence as well as rehearse duologues/ scene work from As You Like It and All's Well That Ends Well specifically. The course is held at the college, and includes a trip to the Box Office Studio in Shoreditch, site of the original Theatre where the Lord Chamberlain's Men performed.
- Journal inspiration: creative approaches to writing about your life Course start date: Thu 23 Apr 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Julie GartonThis inspiring, six-week workshop, led by an experienced journaler, encourages students to explore a range of techniques and prompts in order to find an approach to life writing that suits them. - City Lit contemporary collage projects 3 Course start date: Thu 23 Apr 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
City Lit contemporary collage projects 1 initiates a year-long set of collage and mixed media projects designed to experiment with and examine the interplay between the two and three dimensions. You will work with a wide range of materials, on and off the wall, extending our pictorial practice into the realm of collage, painting, drawing, assemblage, bricolage, decoupage, photomontage, small scale constructions, printing and text within the context of mixed media.
Note* the course is designed in a way to enable students to either complete all three courses over the year or to come in at any stage in no particular order.Full fee £839.00 Senior fee £671.00 Concession £545.00
Can't see a course you want?
Add this category to your waiting list to set up alerts and we will update you when new courses are released online.
Add me to waiting list