Painting Courses In London
At City Lit, we offer a variety of painting courses, from complete beginners with a focus on building essential painting skills, to more experimental approaches that include working at a larger scale or with a more abstract focus. Delivered in one of our bright, modern and relaxing painting studios, students will have access to all basic art materials and resources as part of their course.
Our wide range of studio-based courses and workshops offer students a practical, hands-on guide, from setting up your painting workstation, working with watercolour, acrylic or oil to more technical processes including experimental approaches and use of colour and working with painting mediums. We also offer a range of life painting courses and encourage students to work across and between the areas of drawing and painting to continually develop their ideas and work.
Courses available both in-person and online
We offer a range of courses allowing you to choose between online and in-person learning. All our courses are live, interactive, and taught by expert tutors. No matter how you prefer to learn, you’ll receive the same great City Lit experience. See our guide to online learning for more information about accessing our live online courses.
We host exhibitions throughout the year at City Lit Gallery where our students showcase their amazing work.
To arrange a conversation with our painting coordinator about your interests, options and courses available, please contact our Visual Arts team at visualarts@citylit.ac.uk
- Contemporary watercolour painting projectsCourse start date: Sat 8 Mar 2025 (and 5 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Anne-Marie FosterThrough a set of short projects inspired by contemporary practitioners and their contribution to the uniqueness of the medium, the course will help you expand your understanding of watercolour and enable you to make informed choices in making personal work. It will also feature some approaches to painting, beyond the immediate western tradition to provide broader technical and critical insights.Full fee £369.00 Senior fee £295.00 Concession £240.00 - Developing watercolour paintingCourse start date: Tue 18 Mar 2025 (and 9 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Anne-Marie FosterExplore the specific qualities of watercolour and the opportunities this adaptable medium offers to create dynamic painting compositions. Develop a fluency with brush work and layering of colour to develop compositional possibilities.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £149.00 - Painting from plants and flowers
Course start date: Mon 10 Mar 2025 (and 4 other dates)Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Ro SylvesterExplore a variety of creative approaches for painting flowers from observation. Discover the rich history of this genre while taking inspiration from artists who use flowers as their subject matter.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £149.00 - Portrait painting: two session pose Course start date: Sat 22 Mar 2025 (and 4 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Luke JonesDevelop a portrait from life: a structured course to build skills towards making a convincing portrait where the model keeps the same pose over 2 sessions to enable a sustained piece of work.Full fee £209.00 Senior fee £167.00 Concession £136.00 - Introduction to watercolour paintingCourse start date: Tue 4 Mar 2025 (and 11 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Anne-Marie FosterGain a grounding in the rich possibilities available when working with watercolour paint. Through a series of practical studies, you will investigate the potential of this versatile medium.Full fee £279.00 Senior fee £223.00 Concession £181.00 - Painting for beginnersCourse start date: Fri 21 Mar 2025 (and 5 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Amanda BrackenExperience the joy of painting. Through simple exercises you will explore colour, painting techniques and the expressive qualities of painting using acrylic paints. The perfect way to start painting.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £139.00 - Painting: oil techniques and mediumsCourse start date: Fri 7 Mar 2025 (and 5 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Oil paint is a medium with a long historical tradition, capable of heavy impasto effects and delicate transparent colour films. Working practically, in the studio, this course will expand your understanding of approaches to building a variety of surfaces in your paint working with mediums and expanding your use of texture and glazing This course is for all levels – both beginners and more experienced painters.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00 - Ways into landscape paintingCourse start date: Sat 15 Mar 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
This practical course introduces a variety of approaches to expand your understanding of landscape painting.Full fee £369.00 Senior fee £295.00 Concession £240.00 - Oil painting: focus on portraiture Course start date: Sun 2 Mar 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Brian SayersLearn to draw and paint portraits using traditional methods of observation, composition and mark making. Working from a variety of professional portrait models you will start with pencil and charcoal and progress on to oil painting. - Artists eye: painting portraitsCourse start date: Mon 3 Mar 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Kate HardyPaint a series of portraits inspired by the work of contemporary and historical artists. Learn from their individual ideas and techniques to introduce new ways of painting to your practice. The course can be used to progress from beginner level, or for experienced painters interested in portraiture. This is a live online course.
This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £169.00 - Painting and drawing dialogues: looking back at self
Course start date: Mon 10 Mar 2025Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Chris Hough, Tony Hull, Monika KitaWe all have a unique way of looking at the world, shaping what we see to fit our reality. Explore how painting and drawing can magnify unconscious distortions and how memory and the imagination come to embody ‘the Self’ in image-making.Full fee £429.00 Senior fee £343.00 Concession £279.00 - Painting: mixing for skintonesCourse start date: Thu 13 Mar 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
This course will teach you the skills you need to paint naturalistic skin tones when working from life which will make your figure and portrait paintings more convincing.Full fee £209.00 Senior fee £167.00 Concession £136.00 - Painting: colour mixing for artistsCourse start date: Mon 24 Mar 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Amanda BrackenA concise study of colour usage. Investigate colour perception and how colour interacts. Explore a range of observational and expressive painting projects, relate colour theory to practice and develop confidence using colour. An emphasis on colour mixing using acrylics and oil paint.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00
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