EVENING STUDIO with KITTY HILLIER

EVENING STUDIO
with Kitty Hillier
3 NOV - 1 DEC 2026
Tuesdays / 6 - 7.30 PM
5-week course

photo: courtesy Kitty Hillier

COST: £105 (full price) / £95 (locals, with TR10 postcode)
+ small booking fee to cover ticket and payment software fees
All materials, hot drinks and biscuits provided

DAY: Tuesdays / 3 NOV - 1 DEC 2026
TIME: 6 - 7.30 PM
LOCATION: The School Room, Art Centre Penryn
SESSIONS: 5 sessions
LEVEL: All levels, all welcome! 

Join Kitty Hillier for a series of five rejuvenating evening sessions.
Learn, relax and play!

Spend five relaxing and inspiring evenings in the art room, with gentle lighting, warm drinks and space to be creative this Autumn.

Sharing five of her favourite artists — with inspiring quotes, images and insights each week — Kitty Hillier invites you to explore drawing, painting and collage through a variety of approaches. Leaving any pre-conceptions behind, allow yourself to be gently guided into new ways of looking and making. 

Enjoy some time in your week to relax and recharge, or use the sessions to find starting points to stretch and stimulate your own creative practice. 

photo: courtesy Kitty Hillier

TELL ME MORE
Kitty will briefly share images, a poem, quote or anecdote from one of her favourite artists at the start of each session. Sharing her own process of mindful ways to abstraction, Kitty will create a relevant still life, provide materials and demonstrate techniques all related to the chosen artist, for you to use as a starting point for your own exploration with a range of materials. Kitty will then support you to explore in any direction you choose. 

WHAT WILL YOU GAIN FROM THE COUSRE?

• An introduction to five inspiring artists
• A range of drawing, painting and collaging techniques using different materials each week
• Ways to make abstract 2D and 3D forms, inspired by objects and our own imagination
• Time for reflection and relaxation in your week
• Starting points for further exploration in your own time
• All your work to take home, along with a sketchbook full of notes and ideas
  

WHO IS THIS CLASS SUITABLE FOR?
No previous experience of art or making is necessary, a range of options are presented each week to accommodate all moods, levels and abilities. There is no pressure to make ‘good’ or finished work, the focus is on trying out drawing, painting and collaging techniques to relax. All welcome!

Feedback from previous participants:
"A great, freeing course - it's been thoroughly enjoyable - I leave recharged!"
"Really relaxing to come to from work."
"Loved the approach, non-pressurised, offering guidance but not prescription. Really inspiring."
"Great, calm atmosphere and no pressure."
"inspiring creativity and self-care as well as building practical skills and ideas."
"beautiful ethos in the way she teaches"

Watercolour sketch on paper, Kitty Hillier 

WEEKLY OUTLINE
Gentle invitations (all optional) are peppered throughout the sessions to encourage paying attention to all our senses and being present, with time for reflection and collecting journal notes if you wish. Every week Kitty will bring relevant books and notes from her own collection and a reading/reference list will be gathered collaboratively during the sessions, to be distributed to everyone at the end. 

Week 1
Collage through chance and zooming in to find satisfying abstract compositions. Inspired by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Week 2
Incorporating ‘frottage’, magazine cuttings and found objects. Inspired by Eileen Agar

Week 3
Diving into the colour spectrum, mixing colours and making rainbows inspired by Winifred Nicholson

Week 4
Imagining epic sculptures and assembling maquettes, inspired by Phyllida Barlow

Week 5
Discovering colour combinations and the power of black and white stripes, inspired by Gillian Ayre

Kitty's studio, photo by Lottie Matthews

ABOUT YOUR TUTOR

Kitty Hillier

Kitty Hillier is a studio-holder at Art Centre Penryn. Her practice is multi-faceted — she works across drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, semi-functional objects, zines, socially-engaged performance and facilitation. At the centre of her work is a love of process and collaboration, with people and the more-than-human.

Kitty believes in the power of creative expression and benefits of accessing flow state — through gardening, chopping veg, drawing, organising a drawer, making, dancing, or total immersion in a forest or body of water. Her fascination with abstraction has been a constant theme, especially the idea that looking at abstract forms can help us to see the bigger picture.

Sharing her own process of mindful ways to abstraction, Kitty is an experienced facilitator who designs and leads workshops for a range of organisations. Participants are invited to explore slow-looking, to experiment with materials and make use of all the senses to find compositions through outward and inward observation. Outcomes are never forced. Instead, through non-judgement and curiosity, by seeing where play leads and trusting our intuition, unexpected forms emerge.

Kitty studied at Falmouth (Foundation) and Bath Spa (BA Fine Art Painting 2007). She has also recently qualified as a Person-Centred Counsellor and is a Registered Member of the BACP. Her ongoing research into the divided human brain, methods of communication and plant intelligence informs her practice.

“My approach encourages material experimentation and using all senses to create abstract compositions. It’s always great to hear that, after trying the mark-making and drawing exercises I share, people are keen to repeat them at home as a way to reflect, relax or reset.”

www.kittyhillier.co.uk
Instagram: @kittyhillier

Kitty in her studio, photo by Lottie Matthews

REFUND/EXCHANGE POLICY

Art Centre Penryn is a non-profit organisation and our courses form a really important part of our income, we are therefore not able to offer refunds within 30 days of the course date. We offer the following refund/exchange options:

If it is more than 30 days from the course start date, we can offer a full refund, less the booking fee. Within 30 days days from the course start date, we cannot offer a refund, but we could transfer you to another course, or offer a voucher for you to use to book another course. Alternatively, you could send someone else in your place, please just email us to let us know.

We're sorry, but we are unable to offer a last minute exchange within 24 hrs, or after the course, unless in exceptional circumstances.

Thanks for your understanding.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT COURSES AT ART CENTRE PENRYN HERE