Open Day
Open Day: Come see our new studios and find out about our courses
Sunday 13 September 2026
| Date | Sunday 13 September 2026 |
| Time | 12 – 4pm |
| Location | The Essential School of Painting, 4 Coburg Road, London N22 6UJ (Google Map) |
| Admission | No appointment required on the day |
| Nearest stations | Wood Green (Piccadilly line) and Alexandra Palace (Great Northern) |
This summer the Essential School of Painting moved into a new building, a little further along Coburg Road. On Sunday 13 September, for four hours, we are open.
Ours are working studios, open by appointment for the rest of the academic year. On the 13th you can walk through them, meet some of our tutors, and talk to our students about their own work.
What happens on the day
| 12.00 | The studios open Both the main studio, where the yearlong courses work, and the individual studios of the Advanced Painting Course. |
| 12.30 | Talk to us A tutor or one of our directors, set aside to answer your questions about the courses. |
| 1.00 | A year at the Essential School of Painting A talk by one of our tutors or directors, followed by questions. |
| 2.15 | Talk to us |
| 3.00 | A year at the Essential School of Painting |
| 3.30 | Talk to us |
| 4.00 | The studios close |
One of three conversation sessions set above can be booked on the form below; approximately twenty (20) minutes with a tutor or one of our directors.
Our courses, starting this autumn
Ten yearlong courses begin in the first week of October, in the studio and online, alongside our two-year Advanced Painting Course. Every one is taught by practising artists, on full studio days, over three terms of ten weeks.
Depending on the course, the year also takes in gallery and artists’ studio visits, and visiting artists who come into the studios to talk about their own work and then look at ours.
Availability correct as at 30 August 2026.
In the studio
The Painting Year I — Materials, Methods and Ideas
Fridays, 10am – 5pm, from 9 October · Guy Allott and Joana Galego · £795 a term, £2,175 a year
Our foundational year: a full year of practical enquiry into the materials, methods and ideas that underpin painting, ending in a sustained personal project and an exhibition. For painters at a range of starting points, including those who have reached a plateau and want a clearer framework to move forward.
Full details of The Painting Year I — Materials, Methods and Ideas →
The Painting Year II — Tuesdays
Tuesdays, 10am – 5pm, from 6 October · Guy Allott and Rosanna Dean · £795 a term, £2,175 a year
For painters ready to move beyond technical acquisition into the sustained development of a personal practice. Group critiques, visiting artist talks, a gallery visit in the spring, and an end-of-year exhibition.
Full details of The Painting Year II — Tuesdays →
The Painting Year II — Wednesdays
Wednesdays, 10am – 5pm, from 7 October · Melissa Kime and Jim Latter · £795 a term, £2,175 a year
For painters who want genuine depth. Every two weeks a significant contemporary painter comes to the school, talks about their practice, and then looks at your work and tells you what they see — fifteen times across the year.
Full details of The Painting Year II — Wednesdays →
The Narrative Painting Year
Thursdays, 10am – 5pm, from 8 October · Melissa Kime and Joana Galego · £795 a term, £2,175 a year
New for 2026–27. This course invites you to work from the people, places and everyday journeys that make up your own life, and from the different ways an image can be arrived at.
Full details of The Narrative Painting Year →
Painting Personal Projects
Saturdays, 10am – 5pm, from 10 October · Guy Allott and Joana Galego · £795 a term, £2,175 a year
A full year built around your own project, for painters who need the weekend. Twelve places only, so every student gets sustained individual attention alongside a committed group.
Full details of Painting Personal Projects →
Approaches to Abstraction
Alternate Sundays, 10.30am – 4.30pm, from 4 October · Johanna Melvin · £545 a term, £1,420 a year
The way in. No prescribed style or method — the aim is to find the routes into abstraction that are most alive for you, whether through colour and form, gesture and material, or the structure of the picture plane.
Full details of Approaches to Abstraction →
Advanced Abstraction FULL — JOIN THE WAITING LIST
Alternate Sundays, 10.30am – 4.30pm, from 11 October · Johanna Melvin · £545 a term, £1,420 a year
The continuation. Abstract practice pushed into more demanding, more individual and more professionally grounded territory, with gallery visits at key points in the year.
Full details of Advanced Abstraction →
Online
Our online courses are not a lesser version of the studio ones. They run as full live studio days with the same tutors, the same one-to-one attention and the same structure, and they bring together painters from across the country and beyond — people for whom a Tuesday in Wood Green was never going to be possible.
Advanced Painting Personal Projects
Mondays, 10am – 5pm, from 5 October · Adrian Wiszniewski RSA and Rosanna Dean · £775 a term, £2,175 a year
A full working day, shared online, in live dialogue with two painters of exceptional standing. Not pre-recorded lectures and monthly written feedback — a working day, with two accomplished artists engaging directly with your work.
Full details of Advanced Painting Personal Projects →
Painting the Contemporary Figure
Thursdays, 10am – 5pm, from 8 October · Melissa Kime and Rachel Mercer · £775 a term, £2,025 a year
A full year given to portraiture and figurative practice. Students work from the live model and from everything beyond it: photographs, film stills, drawings, memory and imagination.
Full details of Painting the Contemporary Figure →
Developing Your Art Practice
Alternate Fridays, from 9 October · Bob Matthews and Annie Cattrell FRSS RSA · £525 a term, £1,450 a year
Not a painting course, a sculpture course or a drawing course, but a course about the practice of making art: how you generate ideas, test them, talk about them with confidence, and build habits that sustain a practice over years rather than weeks.
Full details of Developing Your Art Practice →
Full time, two years
The Advanced Painting Course 2026–28
Full time, from orientation week on 28 September · £6,700 a year
Your own dedicated studio, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for two years. Around it: weekly seminars, one-to-one tutorials, group critiques, a fortnightly visiting artist programme of over twenty painters, gallery and artist studio visits, and a graduating exhibition.
Full details of The Advanced Painting Course 2026–28 →
Let us know if you are coming
Tell us which conversation session suits you and we will make certain someone is free for you.
If you cannot make the 13th, contact us and we will arrange another time to visit the studios.
Considering an online course?
Three Online Open Evenings run on 8, 9 and 10 September: a real two-hour class, on the platform our students use all year. If none of the dates works, you can book a fifteen-minute conversation with our Artistic Director or our Director.
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Animus ad Creandum — The Courage to Create
