Collection: Short Courses

Expand your still life painting skills in an immersive weekend with renowned artist Jude Rae, who shares her insights into the genre within a cultural frame that supports both the traditions of realist painting and Abstraction. Through personalised instruction you’ll develop a personal visual language to create dynamic, engaging paintings.

Have you always wanted to paint but haven’t known where to start? Designed for complete beginners, this course will give you a solid and practical foundation in painting using acrylics and oil paints. Learn simple processes for colour mixing, composition, and perspective, to produce a suite of finished paintings.

Discover the sensuous beauty of classical oil painting techniques and be guided through a series of structured exercises and demonstrations of methods and specific ways of using materials. 

Learn the art of clay modelling and create a life-size portrait bust that captures both likeness and character. Discover the techniques and principles of working with clay, exploring its plastic properties to sculpt a 1:1 scale portrait. 

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.

A dynamic 2-day ceramics workshop which explores slab building and a variety of surface embellishment techniques using terracotta clay. Develop experimental hand-built slab forms with vessel-like structures. 

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

Learn how to throw pots with a strong architectural form to create objects of simplicity and beauty. Explore the basic structures, movements and techniques of wheelforming in this hands-on course and become proficient on the potter’s wheel.

Explore the art of monoprinting and the creation of original prints using stencils and drawing techniques, with a variety of textured materials. Learn simple bookbinding methods and delve into the nuances of layering, printing, and colour processes to produce unique and dynamic prints. 

Discover how to draw from the figure, from initial sketches of life models to detailed portraits and sustained studies. Learn to see and draw anatomical structures, bring out the personality of the subject and breathe life into your drawings.

This hands-on, practical workshop will cover the basics of ceramic glaze composition, surface development, application techniques, and firing over a range of temperatures. Learn how to test, apply, and fire glazes to suit your own practice. 

Learn to see beyond the bewildering details of your subject to gather the colour information you need to get your painting off to a great start! 

Discover how to think of colour in a way that enables you to mix the exact colour that you want confidently and directly, every time. The course assumes no prior knowledge and has given great results with students from beginner to advanced levels.

Enhance your expressive capabilities and expand your visual vocabulary with a focus on drawing and mixed media. Learn to use collage as a dynamic tool to explore subject matter, balance compositions, test colour and spatial relationships and venture outside your comfort zone. 

Are you eager to move from being an arts enthusiast to a practising, exhibiting and sustainable artist? Learn what it takes to become a professional artist; how to research and understand the investment of time, money, planning, energy and creativity it requires to survive in the arts.

Image courtesy of the Geoff Raby Opening, National Art School

Join acclaimed Australian artist Juz Kitson’s two-day experimental porcelain masterclass and delve deeply into the making process, exploring new ways of manipulating and pushing the porcelain to create challenging and innovative objects. 

Do you want to learn practical drawing techniques and encourage your creativity to emerge in a supportive studio environment? Discover how to see and draw with proportion and perspective, and how to work from small studies to larger, sustained drawings.

Ignite your understanding and enjoyment of watercolour drawing and painting by learning traditional methods and contemporary mark-making techniques. Learn to paint the colours of changing light and to capture its beauty with transparent watercolour painting methods, both in the studio and at outdoor locations.

Are you time-poor yet want to learn how to take great photos? In this two-day intensive photography workshop, you’ll let go of relying on the camera’s automatic settings and be taught the fundamentals of manual exposure, empowering your creative shooting capabilities.