Courses - Online & in London

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 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.

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.

The City Lit mixed media and drawing projects course will introduce you to a wide range of exciting projects across two terms, exploring drawing, collage and printmaking, working in both two and three dimensional contexts. The course promotes and encourages engagement and experimentation with different techniques, materials and concepts, developing a portfolio of diverse and personal creative work.



This course takes place in the studio alongside students on the Ceramics Portfolio course.

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.

For those with previous experience who want to work towards their own goals, or for beginners who want to learn hand-building and throwing processes. We will also cover glazing and surface decoration.