Art & Design Courses - Online & in London  

City Lit Expanded Experimental Film is an immersive year-long course designed to facilitate



and advance all stages of experimental project making.



Whether you have previously attended film or art related courses or simply have an interest in exploring a variety of experimental methods, this course will transform your creative approach.



With an emphasis on interdisciplinary fields including animation, performance, installation and sound, the course will examine multiple applications within expanded experimental film practice.



Through discussions, workshops, and personal projects, and by utilising analogue and digital techniques, participants will gain the knowledge and practical skills necessary to create innovative and challenging artworks.

This 20-week course will take you on a journey from beginner to intermediate, direct.







The Children’s Book industry is thriving, largely due to globally rising literacy levels, and a growing awareness of the importance of early childhood education. As a result, Children’s Book creators are in demand.







Our tutors will teach you the many and various skills you’ll need to illustrate books for children - from drawing and painting (analogue and digital), sequencing and pacing the narrative, to editing the images digitally and overlaying text.







You'll learn about the children’s publishing sector; gaining a sense of the different genres and markets for children's books, and where your illustration style might fit.

This advanced course for developing and practicing artists consists of work-based seminars facilitated by peers and artist-tutors, giving you the opportunity to develop and present your work for critical discourse. The course includes individual tutorials and mentoring, critical investigation via group crits, visits to galleries and artist-run organisations, collaborative work and discussion and debate. This course is one of the eligible programmes for application to Bloomberg New Contemporaries.



The course will be delivered onsite.











This course requires an application prior to enrolment. Please click 'start assessment' to begin your application.

Year 1 of the City Lit Fine Art (CLFA) course will enable you to develop and refine your previous experience in Fine Art in workshops exploring different approaches to drawing, painting, sculpture, print, digital media, and contextual studies, in weekly studio sessions. You will be part of a small cohort of dedicated students and will be taught by experienced and professional tutors who are all practising artists.



The Year 1 course will give you experience in combining different studio processes relevant to current art practice. It will introduce new ideas and contexts, and help you identify your own personal creative responses. Group discussions and tutorials will support the development of your thinking and help you adopt an independent and open-minded approach to making artwork. This course can be taken for personal creative development and progression on to Year 2 of the CLFA course, or to help you prepare for application to Fine Art study at HE.level.



Some basic studio materials are provided, and you will need to supplement these with specific items.

This course will help you improve your skills in graphic design and visual communications in their broadest sense, for delivery or publication in print and online, working with text, image, layout, medium and message across a range of physical and digital media and formats.



It is ideal for anyone who has already completed our City Lit graphics course, and for anyone wishing to build a more extensive and professional portfolio of graphics work, whilst developing a deeper understanding of the connection between text, image, message and media.



Confirmed industry specialist guests: Lydia Thornley, Designer, Creative Director and Reportage Illustrator and award winning film producer/director Mark Craig, maker of the film “The Last Man On The Moon”.

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.



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.

The human form offers inexhaustible potential for communication and expression 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 in drawing, painting and mixed media.

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.

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.