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
- Looking beyond headlines: colonialism and contemporary conflictsCourse start date: Wed 22 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Salome IetterThis course will provide a reflection on the colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial aspects and underpinnings of contemporary conflicts.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £51.00 - Lunchtime lecture: Cezanne – from aspiring Impressionist to Post-Impressionist revolutionaryCourse start date: Thu 23 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Julia MusgraveExplore the development of Cezanne revolutionary approach to painting, his techniques and motifs and some of the many artists whose work he influenced.Full fee £14.00 Senior fee £11.00 Concession £9.00 - Friday lates: psychogeography: the art of getting lost
Course start date: Fri 16 May 2025 (and 1 other date)Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Christopher CollierFrom pub crawls to punk rock, via comic books, action painting and Hegelian philosophy; hear the unlikely tale of the Situationists: international artist-revolutionaries who tried to change the world itself into a work of art.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - The Spanish Empire: Power, Conquest, and LegacyCourse start date: Tue 28 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Maisa EdwardsJoin Dr. Maisa Edwards to explore the rise, global reach and fall of the Spanish Empire from the 1400s to the 1800s.
Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - Philosophy reading group: Descartes's MeditationsCourse start date: Wed 29 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Karl WhiteDescartes’ Meditations is arguably the foundational text of modern Western philosophy influencing not only the what of philosophy, but the how and the why. Reading it together, we’ll discover the stone that created ripples still affecting our thinking today.
Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £51.00 - Greek philosophy: the Hellenistic periodCourse start date: Thu 30 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: John GoffThe pursuit of happiness is ongoing. In the ancient Greek world this gave rise to several ‘philosophies of life’ that remain the cornerstone of contemporary attitudes. Join this course to explore their key sources. - Fact and Fantasy: English Houses in FictionCourse start date: Thu 30 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Phyllis RichardsonWhy have so many British authors set stories in and around an important house? How does the structure, history and atmosphere of a great house affect plot and narrative? And where do authors derive their inspiration to build fictional houses that capture readers’ imaginations so fully? The novels on this course all focus on one finely imagined house and demonstrate the author’s own personal concerns of the time.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - Prostitution in Ancient RomeCourse start date: Tue 4 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sean GabbThe oldest profession as practised among the Romans - not for the squeamish.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - ‘Stranger’ Things: Muriel Spark’s ShapeshiftingCourse start date: Wed 5 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Fiona McCullochThis course will introduce and discuss two novels by eminent author, Muriel Spark- Memento Mori (1959) and The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960). Her writing wilfully upends notions of conformity and acts as a disrupter to accepted conventions. Instead, ‘Spark beckons us to encounter the stranger’ (Marilyn Reizbaum). Playfully disrupting passive readers and stretching comfort zones, Spark’s work provides a space to access unaccustomed outlooks that make us rethink our relationship with ourselves, others, and the world. Instead of unconsciously going with the flow, she awakens us to life’s stranger things.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £84.00 - Image and identity: 20th century Chinese art and cinema Course start date: Wed 5 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Meitao QuExplore the work of Chinese artists and filmmakers between the turn of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st as they try to make sense of a world caught on the cusp between the old and the new. What place did art and cinema have in socio-political movements, and how did visual culture reflect the hopes and anxieties of the time?Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - 20th to 21st Century War Poetry: British and InternationalCourse start date: Thu 6 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldExplore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00 - Friday lates: The East India Company and the passion for chintzCourse start date: Fri 7 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Anita ChowdryExplore the story of how Indian painted and printed cottons became an important trade commodity for the Western domestic market, and the far-reaching impact of their design and manufacture.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Introduction to string quartetsCourse start date: Fri 7 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Pauline GreeneString quartets developed new musical forms and ensured success for many composers, whilst allowing an intimate conversation with their audiences. We trace the quartets of the masters from Haydn and Mozart to Shostakovich and beyond.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £104.00 - The Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi: His message and relevance to the modern worldCourse start date: Mon 17 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Ketan VariaMahama Gandhi’s messages are profound and based both on his lived experience and intellectual power. His views on truth seeking and non-violent action have inspired many, particularly in the civil rights movements. Join this one-day course to find out more about his philosophy and consider its continued relevance in the 21st century.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £51.00 - Love and marriage in Renaissance art Course start date: Tue 18 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Lydia GoodsonGain a new perspective on the Renaissance by exploring the material culture of love, marriage, and childbirth in Renaissance Italy. Join us for a fascinating dive into the world of the Renaissance family.
Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00
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