North Yorks Art School

23/06/2026

⭐️ Back by popular demand. Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year WINNER Fujiko Rose will be heading back to Cober Hill in July 2027 to bring more mastery of the landscape using ink.

Check-in Monday 12th July 2027
Check-out Friday 16th July 2027

This residential is open to everyone including complete beginners and those wanting to brush up on their skills. By the end of the residential you will understand how to “read” the landscape with an artist’s eye, confidently handle ink in a range of traditional and contemporary ways and have a beautiful portfolio of botanical arrangements, intimate landscapes and personal ink studies to take home - plus the skills to keep exploring this rewarding medium long after the residential ends.

🔷 Full board residential at the wonderful and quirky Cober Hill mansion, just outside Scarborough - a stone's throw from the gorgeous North Sea coastline.
🔶 All materials included.

For a full outline of what promises to be a fantastic retreat, click on the link in the comments...

18/06/2026

🎨 Our 2027 Schedule is Here! 🎨

We’re thrilled to announce that our brand new programme of courses, workshops, residentials and weekend breaks for 2027 is now live!

From relaxing creative getaways on the beautiful North Yorkshire coast to inspiring weekly courses and skill-building weekend workshops, there’s something for every artist, whether you’re a complete beginner or looking to deepen your practice.

✨ Early Bird Special
Book now and pay in full to save 10% on selected dates with our Early Bird offer!

💳 Flexible Payment Option
Secure your place today with a 25% deposit, with the balance due 45 days before your chosen event.

Whether you’re dreaming of a week-long residential in watercolours, portrait painting, textiles or a relaxing weekend trying something new like fused glass, stone carving or punch needle, now is the perfect time to plan ahead and treat yourself (or someone else!) to some creative time in 2027.

👉 Browse the full 2027 schedule now and book online:

Which workshop or residential are you most excited about? Drop a comment below and let us know! 👇 We can’t wait to welcome you back to North Yorks Art School next year.

North Yorks Art School is a provider of quality art classes, courses and workshops based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Through bookaclass.com you can view and book classes, courses, workshops and residentials delivered by professional tutors at venues including Scarborough, Knaresborough and Cobe...

14/06/2026

We are thrilled to welcome Toni Cher as the newest official member of the North Yorks Art School & Bookaclass team!

Toni has been part of our school family for over 6 years. She was one of the very first students to attend our pay-as-you-go classes when we first opened in 2020, often turning up when it was just her and me (NYAS Head, Chris), and when I was the only tutor we had then - hoping for a miracle, lol.

Over the years, Toni has become so much more than a student, she’s a dear friend to both Andrew and myself, a regular face at our Christmas table, and someone who has generously helped out at the school on a voluntary basis whenever she could. With Toni, it's total trust.

Toni has faced significant health challenges over the years, which have made finding regular work incredibly difficult. But her positivity and determination to overcome her situation have brought her a long way.

So, we are over the moon to announce that, thanks to the LEAP Programme, a North Yorkshire Council initiative that supports both the employee and employer, Toni will be joining us part-time from tomorrow.

She’ll be working 15 hours a week across the school and our high street shop. This is a huge step for Toni, and we couldn’t be prouder or happier to have her as a member of the team.

10/06/2026

We love this new artwork created by Tracey in Molly's Tuesday Evening mixed media class here at North Yorks Art School. Such a dynamic arrangement!

09/06/2026

Could you?

06/06/2026

⭐️ We're THRILLED to announce the return of a trio of painting legends to our roster of retreats at the fantastic Cober Hill.

Join Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 and 2024 winners Wendy Barratt and Brogan Bertie and semi-finalist Sara Reeve for their bumper joint portrait painting masterclass in AUGUST 2027.

It's more than a year off yet, but having recently released this good news in a newsletter to our subscribers, it's been quick out the blocks! It's going to sell fast, so to avoid disappointment book now.

🍏 Get 10% off the price of this masterclass if you pay in full or why not pay in instalments with one of our flexi-plans?

For more information and to take part in this exciting and rare opportunity, please click on the link in the comments ➡️

North Yorks Art School is a provider of quality art classes, courses and workshops based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Through bookaclass.com you can view and book classes, courses, workshops and residentials delivered by professional tutors at venues including Scarborough, Knaresborough and Cobe...

26/05/2026

It's done! A first batch of postcards - 124 to be exact - have been mailed out to those who have entered our Open Call Competition. Expect them to arrive within the next 2 or 3 days! The 85 people who have so far elected to have newsprint sent to their address shouldn't feel left out. We'll post the first batch tomorrow!

For those that haven't already, there is still time to enter.

TIMELINE
🔴 Enter by midnight on Sunday 21 June 2026.
🟠 First materials mailed out on Monday 25th May 2026 to those who have already entered the open call.
🟡 Full completed artwork must be sent back to us by Friday 7th August 2026.
🟢 Artists through to exhibition will be notified by Friday 14th August 2026.
🔵 ‘The General Strike Centenary Exhibition’ opens Thursday 27th August 2026 at Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough.

For full information and to enter, click on the link in the comments

26/05/2026

We draw in the round at North Yorks Art School - a model in the centre surrounded by artists at their easels. We have strong theatre lights to throw good shadows. Invariably, someone gets an optimum view. Conversely, someone gets a bum view. Long passages of flesh with few features. But the challenge - whether it's a limited time exercise, or some sort of undesirable view - is to do what you can with what you've got. If you have 2 minutes, you don't go about your drawing as if you've got 20 minutes. You have to change - your pace, your focus, your posture. Drawing requires you to fully take part. You can't be half in. So that gas bill, or that upcoming job interview - it all melts away for a couple of hours. Life drawing is about practice and remembering, building connections - being highly attuned to what's before you - this part in relation to that whole. And in another way it's an involuntary switching off of everything not of immediate concern. You forget, which is how it can bring great therapeutic benefit to people with a lot going on. You also have good and bad days, and when the flow isn't there you do feel a bit deflated, as if all the times you did well was just part of some fluke.

We've been doing life drawing at North Yorks Art School twice weekly since 2020, and those that have attended regularly, keeping things joined up, have got better and better at it. I think I have and I don't do it nearly as much as I should.

These ones here are highly honed drawings of mine. They take their cues from the model but continue things to a somewhat stylised conclusion, a few rungs down from caricature, which I think is an interesting spot. I use a very dark, compressed charcoal which carries risks because it's hard to rub out once put in place. But it forces me to be versatile. You have to play the charcoal like an instrument - soft here on its side, much more pressure there utilising its nib, smudging it, subtracting it, using it quickly then taking care. The life drawing room is the world in miniature, a place of contrasting, oppositional forces coming to a point in a controlled environment. And in an ideal world, there'd be one on every street corner.

The models are Verity, Helen, Nick and Suzie.

Written by Christopher Shaw, Head of North Yorks Art School.

24/05/2026

Our latest newsletter is here! Click on the link and read all about it.

We hope you’re enjoying the long bank holiday weekend and soaking up the hot weather. If you’re in Scarborough over the weekend, why not visit our shop on the high street, just opposite Marks & Spencer. We’re open all weekend with a fantastic range of quality art materials and one of the best ...

22/05/2026

We’re thrilled that our open call competition is going really well. Those that enter select either a postcard or newsprint to work on, and what’s different about this open call is that we send out the materials and artists do their work and then send them back to us. The cost of entry covers postage.

So today we’ve been making up the 102cm x 76cm newsprint grounds and managed to do 40 of them (see picture), with, currently, around another 30 to go. People are entering every day though so it might go over 100 by the time deadline arrives at midnight on 21st June. So far, we have close to 100 postcards on quality watercolour paper going out, too.

For those that haven’t entered, and think they might like to (for inclusion in the inaugural exhibition at Nicholas Cliff our new gallery), there’s still time. We start sending materials out next week, so the sooner you enter, the sooner you can get to work.

For more information about our open call, and to take part, visit the link in the comments.