Large-scale sketchbook
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- Start Date: 02 May 2025End Date: 04 Jul 2025Fri (Daytime): 14:00 - 17:00In PersonFull fee £429.00 Senior fee £343.00 Concession £279.00
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What is the course about?
We will look at the contemporary sketchbook as an autonomous (stand-alone) art-form and examine ways that thinking, writing and drawing come together in the creative generation of image and ideas. We will explore contrasting approaches to sketchbook development (pace and style) including spontaneous and planned drawing techniques; we will also look at ways artists balance intimate and formal content and ideas.
Covers a range of contemporary mixed-drawing techniques (see below), encouraging personal adaptation of method and materials.
There will be a visit to the Welcome Collection, exploring the exhibition, artefacts and curatorial approach - taking this as a contemporary model for creative and adaptive thinking. Back at the City Lit studio, you will continue to work with ideas from the Wellcome research visit (i.e. science, life and art) using these sessions to identify and take forward a personal theme or interest.
What will we cover?
- Strategies to work large scale
- How to bring visual research together
- Contemporary sketchbook examples – innovative formats and concepts
- Using the creative act of drawing to review, edit and develop content
- Mixed-media techniques and processes.
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
- Make a personal response to artists references
- Identify and make use of contemporary patterns of association and ways of looking
- Use a range of spontaneous and planned drawing techniques to develop visual content and ideas
- Structure a sketchbook - planning for shifts in thinking, materials and pace.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
This course is suitable for students with some drawing experience. You should have completed an introductory-level drawing course, around 30 hours of study, and feel comfortable drawing with pencil, charcoal and pen.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
It is helpful if you can do some research or additional work on your sketchbook between sessions, but it is not essential.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?
For the first session you will need to bring something to draw in - a journal, notebook or sketchbook-in-progress and a few pencils or pens. If you would like to start a new sketchbook for the course project the tutor will advise formats and concepts in the first session.
When I've finished, what course can I do next?
Depending on your starting point, you may like to take:
- Contemporary Art Sketchbook Walk
- Contemporary collage and mixed media
- One of the City Lit Drawing courses, or the one-year course Extended Drawing for Artists and Makers (advanced)
- Draw, paint, print / Introduction to printmaking.
I am an artist living and working in London, trained at Chelsea School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art (University College London). I have shown in solo and group exhibitions around the UK and in Europe (including the Whitechapel Open and Threadneedle Painting Prize) with work in numerous private collections and featured in Drawing and Painting by Kate Wilson (Thames and Hudson, 2015) For over 30 years I have taught in a wide variety of contexts, lecturing in many British art schools, including Manchester (MA), Cheltenham (BA), Central St Martins, UAL. I have run drawing workshops for Microsoft Seattle, Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, Electronic Arts UK, Vanguard Animation, Tell Me in Mountain View, CA and Kaos Studios (THQ) in New York amongst others. I have also taught renowned opera, television and film directors how to draw (NDAs duly signed) From 2021-22 I was the recipient of an Arts Council England Project Award to conduct research into drawing and the processing of trauma. I have tenure at City Lit where I deliver drawing and painting courses exploring how these activities alter visual perception, with a strong emphasis on thinking through doing.
Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.
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- Life drawing: experimental approachesFull fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00
