Art & Design Courses - Online & in London  

This advanced course in contemporary creative practice will support you in developing a personal project through research, experimentation, development and exhibition in a supportive studio environment. The course is facilitated by practising artists, theorists and curators.







This course requires an application prior to enrolment. Please contact Visual Arts for more information.



This course will be delivered online and in person. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

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.







Confirmed visitors/speakers include:



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



- Margaret Hope, art director, Welbeck Publishing Group



- Arabella Stein, Managing Director, Bright Agency.

Enjoy being guided through inspirational and experimental screenprinting methods. You'll try a variety of mixed media techniques that will energise and enliven your artwork - a great way to expand your image making practice and your portfolio.

Year 2 of CLFA (VM552) will enable you to consolidate and focus the various creative experiences and ideas you will have gained in Year 1, or from equivalent external courses.



This course enables you to identify, develop, produce, and exhibit a personal creative project.



You will adopt simple research methods to help you develop and produce a body of new creative work that takes an individual, self-motivated direction. The necessary self-motivated approach to your work will result in the development of a cohesive set of new artwork that should reflect your own interests. There will be group critiques, one-to-one tutorials and weekly studio production sessions that will challenge and enable you to explore and refine your creative intentions, plus seminars and presentations in which you will learn and engage with new contextual information. These are delivered by experienced, practising artist / tutors.



You should; be prepared to spend some of your own time developing your creative work, and enhancing your creative thinking by visiting exhibitions, reading, researching and planning your project.



Basic materials are included but you will need to supplement these depending on the nature of your creative work.



The course culminates in a group exhibition in the college gallery. This will be organised and marketed collaboratively by the student cohort with engagement and support from CLFA Tutors and City Lit technical staff.

Adobe Creative Suite is the principal software used by Illustrators and Designers all over the world. On this course, learn how to take scribbly sketches and inky splotches into Adobe Photoshop and transform them into illustrations, collages, pattern designs… the possibilities are almost endless; thankfully, you will also be taught a crucial skill of digital illustration - knowing when to stop!







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.

Learn the essentials of Still Life painting from paint handling and colour theory to composition.



Dedicate some time to developing your painting in a series of controlled steps. Learn to select and prepare surfaces and materials, build a composition around still life objects and make supplementary studies to guide your colour application. For absolute beginners.

Learn how to produce work that mimics a painterly style using lithography printmaking processes. Lithography depends on the delicate balance between grease and water and can provide a broad range of outcomes. Learn how marks and brush strokes drawn and painted on the printing plate can be faithfully reproduced to create bold or subtle prints.

Experience and explore all the making techniques in ceramics: coiling, slab-building, press moulds and throwing on the wheel. Also included is an introduction to basic glazing and simple glaze mixing.