Our philosophy - How we teach

art class, oil, acrylic and watercolour painting, North London

‘I remember, all those years ago, during my first year at art school, I would arrive each morning not knowing what was in store for me, but ready to take part in whatever challenge had been planned. Then, at the end of the day, I would walk home, enriched with new skills and knowledge, elated and exhausted. Those days proved to be some of the best learning experiences I would have, and became the catalyst for what I aim to provide at Insight School of Art every day.‘

Paul Regan, Insight Founder and Director

Insight School of Art provides an art school experience for adults of all ages and abilities, bringing together people who not only enjoy making art, but also want to develop their skills and knowledge.

Our experienced teachers plan exciting new lessons covering a range of subject matter every term. Each lesson includes a demonstration, examples of work by relevant art and artists, and a brief that will challenge students to find an outcome that is personal to themselves and in their natural style.

Every Insight teacher is a skilled practitioner, but first and foremost, we employ teachers based on how skilled they are at sharing their knowledge in a clear and exciting way, and how passionate they are about teaching.

During our general painting and drawing studio classes, we plan and deliver six brand new individual workshop sessions each term (weeks 1-3 and 7-9), reflecting the best of what we experienced at art school, as well as allowing six weeks for students to make work based on their own ideas, whilst being consistently supported and guided by their class teacher. For students who wish to only develop their own work each week in our studios, without planned workshops, Insight also runs Advice and Guidance classes.

Insight also runs tutored life drawing and portraiture classes for students who wish to work directly from a model, with a mix of planned workshops (looking at drawing approaches based on the work of other artists) and long poses for students to develop their own ideas.

In 2020, Insight's 20th year, our studio classes became accessible via Zoom, allowing people from all over the world to join in. We also began to provide students with lesson plans via email, in the form of video introductions, demonstrations and presentations showing the work of artists relevant to the week's brief.