Collection: Short Courses

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.

Develop the skills to create larger, more complex forms on the potter’s wheel and expand your throwing techniques. You’ll be introduced to advanced methods such as coiling and sectional throwing, exploring the nuances of working with larger pieces.

Discover new approaches to handbuilding in clay with a focus on making colourful ceramic vessels and objects using experimental techniques to push the boundaries of the form. Learn to work with a range of techniques including pinching, stacking, joining, coiling and slab constructions.

Printing with coloured inks from multiple plates is an exciting way to advance and develop your etching practice. Progress from simple monochromatic prints and learn to confidently add colour to your etchings using more challenging techniques. 

Learn fundamental welding skills and complete small-scale welded steel sculptures. With demonstrations and techniques for using arc and MIG welders and oxyacetylene to cut, shape and bend steel, as well as ways to grind steel and use surface treatments suited to steel.

Explore and learn to draw the forms and structures of the human head, facial features, and body dynamics and discover the connection between the ‘character’ and the ‘face’.

Using a variety of drawing mediums from pencil, charcoal, ink and wash to collage, via quick sketches and sustained drawings, students will investigate a range of subjects starting with the skull and plaster casts, to the live model and self-portrait.

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. 

A comprehensive introduction to the world of printmaking techniques such as lino and woodcut, dry point etching and Monoprinting. Explore layering processes, multiple plates, and sensory drawing exercises to create a series of prints. 

Explore the art of collage and learn the practices of cutting and composition with award-winning artist Deborah Kelly. Learn to play purposefully with pictures and develop a range of technical skills to create original artworks, developing new imagery from historical materials.

Capturing the subtle details of the face requires strong observational and drawing skills, and learning to draw portraits becomes achievable when broken down into key components. By understanding these foundational principles, you’ll enhance your portraits and enrich your sketchbook with greater confidence.

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. 

Enrol in an immersive and dynamic workshop that explores three-dimensional slab construction with terracotta clay. The emphasis is on developing experimental slab forms with an orientation towards vessel structures. An extensive variety of in-depth surface embellishment techniques will be explored.

Explore the varied processes of screenprinting starting with basic stencils and moving into photographic techniques. Learn how to create original prints from drawings, photographs and existing images, as well as how to use the darkroom and the computer for photographic processes with image separations and colour mixing. 

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

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.

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.