Thursdays | 8 October 2026 to 1 July 2027 | 10:00am to 5:00pm
Artist-Tutors: Melissa Kime and Rachel Mercer
Format: Online
Fee: £775 per term | Annual fee £2,025
About This Course
Painting the Contemporary Figure is a full-year online course dedicated to portraiture and figurative practice, taught within a supportive community of fellow painters. It is open to all, and explores the elements of portrait and figure painting and drawing in both systematic and creative ways across a complete year of study.
Students work from the live model and from a wide range of sources beyond life: photographs, film stills, drawings, memory and imagination. From these starting points the course pursues experimental approaches to making images, staying open to the unexpected and the expressive rather than settling for the merely accurate. The year builds steadily toward a completed body of work, so that each painter finishes with a coherent set of paintings rather than a collection of isolated studies.
Teaching combines personalised one to one attention with group discussion and critique. Delivered online, the course brings ESOP’s studio teaching to painters wherever they are, holding the same rigour and the same close attention that define the school’s work in the studio.
Who This Course Is For
Painting the Contemporary Figure is open to all levels. It suits painters who:
- Want to develop their portraiture and figurative practice seriously, over a full year
- Are interested in both drawing and painting the figure and the face
- Want to work from the live model and to range beyond it, into photographs, film stills, memory and imagination
- Are drawn to experimental, expressive image-making rather than straightforward representation
- Want to complete a coherent body of figurative work by the year’s end
- Prefer, or need, to study online without loss of rigour
No prior art school experience is required. If you are unsure whether this course is right for you, please use the contact form at the bottom of this page.
What the Year Involves
- Three terms of ten weeks, taught online every Thursday, 10am to 5pm
- Portrait and figure painting and drawing, approached in both systematic and creative ways
- Work from the live model alongside photographs, film stills, drawings, memory and imagination
- Experimental approaches to image-making, open to unexpected and expressive results
- Individual one to one guidance within each session
- Regular group critique and discussion among fellow painters
- A developing body of figurative work, built toward completion across the year
Sources and Experiment
What distinguishes this course is its breadth of source and its openness of method. The live model remains central, but it is one starting point among several. A photograph, a film still, an old drawing, a remembered face or a purely imagined figure can each become the ground for a painting. Students learn to move between these sources with confidence, and to treat the unexpected result not as an error but as a discovery. The aim is not likeness alone but expressive, resolved painting.
The Online Studio
Studying online does not mean studying alone. The course runs as a full studio day, built around live teaching, direct tutor feedback and the company of a committed group working to the same ends. There is time for sustained work, individual input and shared critique, so that the experience holds the rhythm and seriousness of a day in the studio.
| Art Materials As this is an online course, students provide their own materials. A recommended list of paints, mediums, brushes and surfaces is provided at enrolment, so that you begin the year properly equipped and can build your working palette with confidence. |
Academic Year Dates at a Glance
| Term | Start Date | Half Term | End Date | Wks |
| Autumn Term 2026 | Thu 8 October 2026 | 29 October | Thu 17 December | 10 |
| Spring Term 2027 | Thu 14 January 2027 | 18 February | Thu 25 March | 10 |
| Summer Term 2027 | Thu 22 April 2027 | 3 June | Thu 1 July | 10 |
Total teaching Thursdays: 30
About the Artist-Tutors
Melissa Kime
Melissa Kime holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2015) and a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Drawing School. She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, and won the Arts Club Award at the Royal Academy Summer Show 2019. She was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA London.
Rachel Mercer
Rachel Mercer studied at Cardiff Metropolitan University, graduating with First Class Honours, before completing The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School. Drawing from life is the foundation of her practice: she paints everyday public life, building larger studio paintings from observed drawings and watercolours, worked up with memory and imagination. She has won the Hampstead Art Society Prize and held Royal Drawing School residencies in Italy, Ayrshire and China. She is represented by Vivienne Roberts Projects, London.
| The ESOP PathwayPainting the Contemporary Figure stands as a complete year of painting practice and study, one of the Essential School of Painting’s programmes, here delivered online. It sits alongside The Painting Year I and The Painting Year II courses as a distinct route through a serious year of practice, in this case one built around the figure and the portrait, the live model and the wide range of sources beyond it. Painters who complete the year and are ready for the intensity of a full-time studio commitment may wish to explore the ESOP Advanced Painting Course. Information on Open Days and the application process is available on the ESOP website. |
