The Painting Room
Learn to look. Then learn to say something.
Six studios, twenty-four numbered lessons. We begin the old way — a pencil, one object, ten quiet minutes — and end with world art history, honest critique and pictures made for real people. Every lesson names the skill it is really teaching, so nothing is wasted when the student grows up.
Start here
Studio 1 for everyone, whatever the age.
Twice a week
One lesson, forty minutes, plus daily sketchbook.
Nothing fancy
Pencil, paper, three pots of paint, a bit of clay.
Today's warm-up
about 5 minutes · same every day, new one each morning
Ten tiny things
Draw ten small things you can see from your chair. Thumbnail size each.
Do this first, straight after coming in from play. Then sit for a moment before the lesson begins.
The six studios
Tap a board to open its four numbered lessons.
Studio 1
Line & Looking
The old way
Daily sighted drawing from life, the way apprentices began.
Carries into grown-up life
Attention, note-taking, engineering sketches, reading faces kindly.
Look at together
Käthe Kollwitz's charcoal drawings, and Ancient Egyptian tomb line work.
Lesson 1
Ten-minute morning line
Do it: Draw one real object — a shoe, a spoon, a hand — for ten quiet minutes. No rubbing out.
Big idea: Drawing is looking slowly with a pencil in your hand.
Skill for life: Sustained attention
observeoutlineedgeLesson 2
Blind contour
Do it: Look only at the object, never the paper, and draw its edge in one unbroken line.
Big idea: Wobbly is fine. The eye is learning, not the hand.
Skill for life: Letting go of perfect
contourcontinuoustrustLesson 3
Shapes hiding inside things
Do it: Find the circle, box and triangle inside a teapot. Draw those first, then the details.
Big idea: Big shapes first, small shapes last — that is how anything gets built.
Skill for life: Breaking a problem into parts
shapestructureproportionLesson 4
Light, shadow, roundness
Do it: Put an apple by a lamp. Shade the dark side until it looks like you could pick it up.
Big idea: Shadow is what turns a flat circle into a round ball.
Skill for life: Seeing degrees, not opposites
shadehighlightform
Calm first
Three slow breaths before the first mark. Drawing badly with a calm hand beats drawing tensely.
One kind thing
Draw a portrait of someone in your house and give it to them.
How do we know?
Why do we say looking matters more than talent? Draw a hand from memory, then draw it while staring at your real hand. Put the two side by side. The paper answers the question.
Artist of the week
El Anatsui
born 1944 · Ghana & Nigeria
He turns thousands of flattened bottle tops into shimmering cloths the size of buildings.
Look up together
Hovor
Try it yourself
Make a picture only from rubbish you were about to throw away.
A new artist appears every week, from all over the world and all through time.
Morning sketchbook
A page to print for the mornings
One quiet page at the start of the day: the weather inside me, whatever has been on my mind, and one free drawing. The child decides whether to keep it private, show one person, or add it to their portfolio. Nobody marks it.
Open the printable page →Your portfolio
Everything you have made
Write down each piece as you finish it. Nothing here is marked or compared with anyone else's — it is a record of your own years of making. It stays on this device.
Ask Foxy
Your art helper
Ask anything. Foxy gives hints first, then kind explanations.
Type a question below, or tap one of the ideas.
For grown-ups: the order matters more than the pace. Studios 1 and 2 are the foundation — repeat them for years without apology. Please supervise cutting, clay firing and anything eaten, and look at art history pictures together first, as some famous works are frank about bodies, war and grief.