Level 4, Level 5 and Level 6 form the Advanced Levels of the Course and are suitable for students in the senior years of secondary schools. During these levels all our students begin learning traditional oil painting techniques. Painting in oils is a joy and all our students love it! Each Level lasts for three terms but each term is very different.

The Senior Levels of our course involve a step up in art practice. All our students receive art materials to enable them to continue developing skills at home. Each student has guided studio time for two hours each week where they follow the lessons online, giving all students the opportunity to work at their own pace and in their own time. Each term uses a variety of mediums, developing skills and techniques taught in the early levels in Watercolour, gouache, acrylic, pen and ink, pastel, pencil and oil. The last four lessons of a term work on a single piece in oil, with complexity and difficulty levels increasing term by term. We really develop our artists’ techniques and skills during the Senior stages of our course, having them tackle; ‘lost edges’ painting the complex colours of white, portraiture, painting with palette knives and ending with studying the Master Artists of the past.

The final painting of the course is when our students tackle painting Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’. Many of our past students have included work from the Little Art School in their portfolios when applying to study art at college and university levels. Time is devoted in each lesson of Levels 4 to 6 on developing advanced Sketchbook Skills. This part of the course is all about our students becoming used to carrying their sketchbooks and drawing and painting what they see. Sketchbooks issued are more compact and change size and medium according to course requirements. We aim by the end of Level 6 of the Little Art School Course to have every student graduating being a confident sketcher accustomed to public sketching and painting.