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Our Approach

JJ Arts London creates a relaxed and supportive environment, located in the spacious Honor Oak Pub in Forest Hill, Southeast London. You'll learn, create, meet like-minded people, and leave with new skills from the very first session.

 

We are ready to work with you to achieve your creative goals with a personal and adaptable approach to building your drawing and painting skills. Depending on your starting experience level, we'll start off with a solid grounding in observational drawing using a grid as a support, working from black and white tonal drawing and moving into oil painting and colour mixing. As you progress, we'll remove the grid and teach you the more advanced and specialist drawing and painting techniques that will help you achieve your personal goals, whether they are traditional portrait paintings of friends and family, imaginative illustrations, landscapes or still life.

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We'll provide a range of source images and artworks to suit a range of interests and skill levels, and we'll guide you as you learn to recreate them. We can also help you produce your own original compositions, working from your own photographs or references.

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Joel and James have collaborated as professional artists and close friends for over 10 years and have developed JJ Arts London with a common art teaching ethos in mind. They keep class sizes small in order to give you as much individual attention and guidance as possible. They'll get to know your goals, experience level, and interests, and cater their approach to suit each individual as much as possible. The aim is to make you comfortable, help you to achieve your aims, and let you work and develop at your own pace.

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If you are new to drawing and painting, or it's been a long time and you are nervous about being 'good enough' to take classes, DON'T BE! We hear this from a lot of new students, and working with people who want to develop new skill is our passion! We will give you step by step guidance to start, and you'll be surprised with what you can achieve with just a few tips and following a process. 

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What's Included

We provide the space, tutoring and materials, all you have to do is turn up ready to learn and enjoy some well-deserved 'me time'.

Painting

We will cover:

  • Perspective basics

  • Line weight

  • Creating light on forms

  • Tonal value - rendering techniques

  • Structural basics

  • Basic colour theory

  • Sighting - measuring

  • Composition / design

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We can also offer professional guidance, critique and/or portfolio development advice upon request.

art intro

Tools and materials provided:

  • Willow charcoal, pencils and kneaded erasers and blending stumps

  • Drawing paper

  • A2 drawing boards and clips

  • Gridded acetate overlay

  • Oil paint, brushes, palettes and turpentine

  • Canvas paper

  • Rulers, tape, and cleaning supplies

  • Reference images to suit a range of interests

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We also provide space to store your work-in-progress between sessions.

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What to bring:

  • Any of your own printed images that you'd like to work from - A3 size ideally (we can print them for you at £2 each).

  • A smock/apron or wear something you don't mind getting dirty.

  • If you like to work upright, you can bring your own table easel large enough to hold an A2 board (we'll store it for you between sessions). Recommended: Lightweight Aluminum Telescopic Easel or H Frame Table Easel

  • A bag (big enough to hold A3 paper) that you can take your finished work home in (we will store your work for you until it's complete/dry).

Cancellation Policy

If you can't make a session you've booked, please inform us within at least 48 hours of the session to allow us to offer your place to someone else. We'll move your booking to a future date wherever possible, or offer a refund.

Cancellations with less than 48 hours notice will be charged a £7 fee per session. No-shows are non-refundable.

Meet Your Tutors

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