Collection: Daytime Courses

This beginner course introduces the essentials of oil and acrylic painting through direct observation. Explore light, colour, and form in still life, landscapes, and portraits while learning composition, proportion, perspective, colour theory, and technique. Progress from monochrome studies to full colour works, building confidence and foundational painting skills. 

Learn to draw forms and structures of the human head, facial features, body dynamics and discover the connection between the ‘character’ and the ‘face’. Using pencil, charcoal, ink, wash and collage, to make quick sketches and sustained drawings from plaster casts, live models and a self-portrait.

Use the motif of the window to move from painting interior spaces to depicting views of the exterior landscape, with a focus on modernist painting techniques. The course begins with a collective still life composed of students’ personal objects, from which you will draw and paint. It then shifts toward interior–exterior landscapes, exploring compelling vistas seen through windows overlooking the campus.

Learn basic anatomical concepts that will enable you to grasp the essential structure and action of the figure in a few lines, leaving you free to focus on the individual character and expressive effect of your drawing, instead of struggling just to make it look like a figure!  A life model poses in each session, alternating with group and individual instructions and demonstrations referring to the model, skeleton, anatomical diagrams and master drawings.

Immerse yourself in the luminous world of watercolour and explore the expressive potential of the medium, working across landscapes, still life, and the human figure. With demonstrations, hands-on exercises, and discussions, this course encourages you to refine your technique while embracing spontaneity.

Gain a comprehensive introduction to the cornerstones of printmaking as we investigate both relief printing (lino and woodblock) and intaglio printing (etching) over five exciting days. Discover the wonderful array of marks, tones and processes that are possible in these two engaging art forms. These disciplines are both steeped in tradition while allowing for exciting approaches to contemporary art making.  

Develop core wheel-throwing skills through hands-on practice in clay preparation, wedging, centring, lifting, shaping, trimming and turning. This intensive course builds strong technique and confidence on the wheel while encouraging exploration of form. Create bowls, cups or sculptural pieces, with selected works bisque-fired in NAS kilns.

Explore contemporary landscape painting through a balance of outdoor drawing and indoor painting practice. On location you’ll make sketches that capture shifting light, colour, and atmosphere. In the NAS studio, you’ll experiment, reflect, and transform these studies into painted works, developing confidence through spontaneous observation and thoughtful refinement.

Immerse yourself in the luminous world of watercolour and explore the expressive potential of the medium, working across landscapes, still life, and the human figure. With demonstrations, hands-on exercises, and discussions, this course encourages you to refine your technique while embracing spontaneity.

There are many ways to tap into your creativity when you are drawing. Toshiko Oiyama leads you through guided experiments and playful exercises, from unexpected ways of holding pencils, to using the sense of touch in focused seeing, to discover the world around you afresh. 

Develop and deepen your practice of hand-building in ceramics, whether you're interested in creating vessels, figurative forms, abstract sculptures, large-scale works, or a series of smaller pieces. Ideal for both beginners and intermediate students seeking to expand their skills. 

This exciting course combines textiles with creative drawing using diverse techniques with paper, fabric, collage and assemblage. In this course you will explore the materiality of different surfaces.  Students will be guided in sketching, painting, weaving and embroidering lines on the surface of papers and textiles.

Work directly from the nude figure to understand the balance between observed figuration and abstract formal qualities. All fundamental drawing elements are considered, including compositional issues of the human form, space and structure.

Learn everything there is to know about welded steel sculpture, and the safe use of oxy acetylene, arc and MIG welding techniques. With demonstrations of joining, cutting, shaping, grinding and bending steel to produce successful sculptures.

Discover the mystery of bronze, from planning a sculpture to the finished bronze. Model a figurative sculpture in wax, then prepare the ceramic shell casting, including sprueing the waxes, burning out the ceramic moulds, casting the bronze, devesting moulds, chasing and patina-ing the sculptures using metal chasing and patina techniques.

Do you want to learn to draw in a way that’s responsive to the unique qualities of your subject, but also sensitive to the expressive effect of your drawing’s abstract elements of line, rhythm, shape and tone? Discover how to draw with pencils, chalks and ink from subjects including plaster casts, the life model and the historic National Art School campus.

Learn to paint expressively with an individual approach while increasing your knowledge and understanding of the importance of colour, composition and form. Using acrylic or oil paint, students will learn how to mix and experiment with colour and will be encouraged to paint quickly and loosely and to develop expressive brushwork.

In this two-day workshop, you will learn how to hand build three-dimensional forms and sculptural wall works out of clay. Working with slab building techniques, explore ceramic forms as well as surface design and decoration through a use of slip, underglaze, sgraffito and carving techniques to create personal stories with clay. 

This course presents a unique approach to understanding and applying colour developed by David over the last 25 years. It consists of eight beautifully illustrated lectures complemented by optional practical exercises that progress from mastering colour control in paint through to still-life painting studies. The live lectures and discussions can be viewed outside class as video recordings. Students undertake practical exercises outside class and can submit photos for feedback.

Engage your five senses in the act of drawing and experience a fresh, personal and perceptive approach to art making. From initial idea generation to the creation of resolved drawings, this course provides a pathway to dynamic and personal expression.

Learn the fine art of copper plate etching, a medium both steeped in tradition and one that allows for exciting approaches to contemporary art making. In this 2-day workshop discover various methods to create a small edition of prints in the beautiful NAS etching studios.