North Yorks Art School

23/09/2026

A very busy day yesterday. Over at Cober Hill a couple of 4-night residentials started. We had Introduction to Botanicals with Sandrine Maugy (no pictures yet) as well as Contemporary Portraiture with Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the year Samiro Addo - three examples of them getting started with their wedges (rather than brushes). At the school I did Week 3 of my beginner's drawing course in the morning, then week 3 of my beginner's painting course in the afternoon where Shirley painted apples and pears (pictured) from a photo, concentrating on good values, colour and tone. At the school we also had portrait class where Max kept time and created a charcoal and graphite portrait of Sue (pictured). At 1pm, Peter took the urban sketchers out (that's a free class we put on). At 6pm Molly arrived at the school for her weekly mixed media class and an hour later Linda did the same to deliver her art history lecture on Velázquez and Zurbarán. For the students at Cober Hill, Darya did a stamp-making class after the evening meal and then at 9pm switched on the evening film in the Drawing Room on the big projector.

During the last two classes, I had a couple of glasses of wine under the school listening to the muffled sounds of people happily creating. We watched 70UP and found it compelling and devastatingly good at milking tears from us.

So, pretty much just another day at NYAS | Booka!

22/09/2026

My Beginner's Drawing Week 3 happened this morning. The group tackled self portraits. We started with a few exercises to get the group to look more closely at how our faces hang together, including a haptic drawing whereby they closed their eyes and drew what they could feel. Pushing, prodding and exploring the lumps, bumps, hollows and protrusions that make up their faces. We use two mirrors: a 7 inch mirror which we attach to the easel and a compact mirror to isolate and close in on detail. The drawings presented here took 30 minutes to complete.

20/09/2026

🔘 When work on our new gallery - Nicholas Cliff - came to a halt due to rising costs, we went public and asked for help getting the ball rolling again. We were tired of seeing it as a shell of what it could be. So we had a think and came up with the idea of an open call as a way to raise funds and get us motivated. We settled on the General Strike of 1926 as a theme, then invited artists, makers, writers and members of the public to respond creatively to the themes of solidarity, labour, community and resistance.

Click on the link to see images of the winning entries and get the full story of Nicholas Cliff.

☑️ A PEOPLE's VOTE

While you're there, please help us find two people's choice winners. We have uploaded ALL the entries sent to us (and not just those that made it through to exhibition).

Perhaps you agree with our judges? If not, HAVE YOUR SAY, by clicking on the link in the comments ➡️

18/09/2026

Join award-winning textile artist and passionate rug maker Kim Searle (Darn It! Workshops) for a fun, creative, and hands-on week dedicated to the wonderful world of rug making using punch needle, latch hook, and rag rug techniques.

🔸 Kim Searle is a highly experienced textile tutor and maker based in West Yorkshire. She runs Darn It! Workshops, delivering creative sessions across the UK with a strong focus on sustainability, upcycling, community and wellbeing through making. Kim specialises in modern approaches to traditional textile crafts and regularly teaches at major events including the Festival of Quilts, Knitting & Stitching Show and Crafting Live. She is particularly known for her enthusiastic and supportive teaching style that makes these techniques accessible and enjoyable for everyone.

🟣 This unique residential week is structured so that each day you will focus on a different technique with Kim guiding you through everything step by step.

What you will learn during the week:

▪️Punch Needle – Create beautiful textured designs with loops and texture, perfect for wall hangings, cushions, and rugs.
▪️Locker Hooking – The craft in between crochet and rag rugging, with no crochet experience needed. Using a tool like a crochet hook you make loops through a mesh that are secured with a filler cord that can't be pulled out.
▪️Rag Rug Making – Explore both traditional and modern rag rugging techniques using recycled fabrics and shaggy and loopy techniques and a variety of tools to achieve these.
▪️Additional techniques and variations each day to expand your skills

You will work on individual projects each day while building a toolkit of skills you can continue using at home. This is a fantastic opportunity to immerse yourself in these satisfying, creative, and therapeutic crafts in a supportive and friendly environment.

Whether you are a complete beginner or have some experience and want to expand your repertoire, Kim’s encouraging approach will help you gain confidence and produce lovely finished pieces to take home.

📌 Residential Details
This masterclass includes a full board four-night stay in your own en-suite room at the scenic Cober Hill retreat, just outside Scarborough and includes all materials and equipment.

➡️ Check-in: From 3pm, Monday 22nd February 2027
⬅️ Check-out: By 10am, Friday 26th February 2027

Limited to 10 people.

Residential Price: £945.
Take advantage of our Early Bird offer and get 10% off.
Residential Price with Early Bird offer: £850.50.

To book this residential and to view our range of early bird offers, click 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...

16/09/2026

Week 2 of my beginner's painting course happened yesterday and people had a choice of apples by Dukes or head by Calandro.

After last week's monochrome painting, this week I introduced the group to the complex world of colour while constantly touching on good ways of using the tools at hand, good ways of picking the paint up from the palette, good ways of applying the the paint, being terse with the paint (rather than mindlessly laying it down in 37 strokes in one pedestrian sort of motion), telling someone who is scumbling by default (a technique in painting) that it can be good to scumble but how it might be advantageous to then counterbalance that technique with other more fruity and lush moves.

There is no watching me then they do it. Everyone tends to jump in in their various ways, and then I steer each individual in a sort of programme of "correction".

"Ah, it's good you've gone awry there (let's call as it is) but it's good because now you can salvage it..."

Group laughter.

"...and it's in the salvage operation - the push and pull - that interesting things can happen. Yes, I'm so glad you went too far there".

"Oh, I've made my apples too murky and now I can't get my yellows to shine".

"Yes because the yellow in System 3 acrylics is transparent. Put a little bit of titanium white in your yellow (titanium white has great coverage) and it'll strengthen your yellow and help it sit on top of the murk and be the beacon it can be".

"Why is yellow so transparent?".

"Well, Cadmium Yellow in System 3 is transparent, and that can be used to your advantage but try the different ranges and you'll see they all have different properties - some more matt, some more opaque etc. It can be discombobulating, but this is the pat-your-head-rub-your-stomach nature of painting. A million variables. It's great. Don't be put off. You're a student. It doesn't matter that much. Great work by the way, keep going".

14/09/2026

A series of 4 art history lectures start tomorrow evening (Tuesday 7pm-9pm) at North Yorks Art School with facilitator and host, Linda Polkowski.

Each lecture is stand-alone but can be enjoyed as part of a series, with this one bringing a compare and contrast approach to a bunch of European masters. Linda's charm and easygoing air has made these events popular and relaxed and she leads from the front accompanied by her husband Dave - assistant fact-checker and foil.

You can expect to see lots of images on the easy-to-see widescreen and when Linda throws out a question you can come forward with answers, ideas and thoughts or if you prefer you can hide your light under a bushel. Both positions are perfectly acceptable in this warm and friendly space which has been happening at North Yorks Art School for over two years now.

Oh, if only we had a street corner art school in Scarborough where we could enjoy an evening talking about culture swigging wine rather than nodding off in front of Gogglebox.

Actually, you do. And you only do until you don't. And right now you do, so for more information and to book, please click on the link in the comments ------>

09/09/2026

Recent flood damage caused the closure of our brand new gallery a week after opening but we're delighted to announce the open call exhibition at NICHOLAS CLIFF will reopen today.

150 people came to the opening of the exhibition and in the following days before the flood damage happened another 300 people visited. The feedback has been tremendous and we thank everyone for their support and good wishes.

The General Strike 1926 Centenary Exhition is officially open Thursday-Sunday 11am-3pm, but we will be opening a day early (Wednesday) to make up a little bit for lost time.

NICHOLAS CLIFF 34 St. Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough. YO11 2ES

04/09/2026

Nicholas Cliff is closed until further notice.

Due to flood damage taking out the lights and parts of the ceiling, our Open Call exhibition at Nicholas Cliff is closed today and will remain closed until we can identify the source and fix the problem.

We're very happy to report that the artwork itself is not damaged but we currently have no lights, and it isn’t safe to let the public in.

Since we opened last week and not counting the opening event itself, just short of 300 people have been in to see the exhibition, so we're really disappointed and a bit gutted by what we've woken up to today. We know people are travelling to come and see this show.

We’ll reopen with the current exhibition as soon as we possibly can. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for all your support.

We are leaving the issues at Nicholas Cliff in the hands of our builders and will focus on the 80 people who are looking forward to attending workshops at Henshaws in Knaresborough - all happening tomorrow.

We're looking forward to seeing you all there!

28/08/2026

Finally, we have an exhibition space again. We hated losing it to make way for classrooms as the school took off but it's great to once more have a place to build exhibitions. That's where we started and we want exhibition-making to be a big part of what we do.

Last night marked the opening of our Open Call exhibition in what, next year, will be Nicholas Cliff. A new space for building an ambitious programme of exhibitions.

We took this place on just over 12 months ago. Since then it has been a struggle to get to a position where we could open. We have battled with uneven floors, flood damage to the ceiling and limited funds to do what we really want to do.

What people turned up to last night - 150 of them - is phase one. It is not finished. The ceiling still needs completing. There is a new floor to come. A new partition wall toward the opening and the walls need plastering and painting. And because this room is a sun trap we need blinds. So after this exhibition, we plan to carry on and get the rest of the work done, and then re-open in spring 2027. But we are now open because enough people decided this Open Call was worth getting involved with.

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We asked artists to respond to the 1926 General Strike, an event that happened a hundred years ago when more than a million and a half people walked out in support of the miners. This caused the country to briefly come to a standstill. Trains, presses, docks, factories all ceased production over a nine day period. It was a time of solidarity, hardship, argument, community, and speaking up with one voice and saying – 'No'.

We asked people to work on two humble and workaday surfaces: newsprint and postcard. Materials you can easily post. Materials that do not pretend to be precious before the work begins. Over 360 people answered the call. From those very strong entries, 21 works on newsprint and 20 postcards were selected.

That’s 41 artworks, chosen from hundreds, now hanging in a room that did not exist as a gallery this time last year. So this open call - this lending a hand - has helped us get Nicholas Cliff to the point where we can open. Every entry helped. Every person who posted work back to us got us to this stage. As we often like to say - we are not a top-down institution. We are a bottom-up initiative and it only works if people turn up. If people affirm us by saying – 'Yes'.

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The competition aspect of the Open Call was tough and competitive. We were joined on Wednesday (see pictures) by four very special guests: our judges. We would like to thank not one but two Sky Arts Portrait Artists of the Year Wendy Barratt and Chloe Barnes, and last year’s finalists Katie Jones and Lauren Ross. Thank you for giving this exhibition your attention, your eye, and your time, especially when you have been busy teaching for us this week at Cober Hill.

There was a lot of conversation and debate during the judging process and many of the works were contenders for the prize. Each judge had their own shortlist of winners as well as runners-up. So it was when opinion overlapped that progress could be made. It was a really difficult decision, but they did finally come to a single entry in each category that they could all get behind.

The results.

The winner of the Newsprint category is Katherine Rousselange for her piece “Coalface” created using Seacoal and gum Arabic. The judges felt Katherine’s piece really cut through and connected most strongly with the premise of the theme, taking viewers to the heart of the matter. Katherine turned up to the event, but only found out she won when Andrew announced her name in front of everyone. Her face was a picture!

The winner of the Postcard category is Paula Hall for her piece “Not a Penny More” whose muted daubs of watercolour depict individuals - you can see their flat caps and collars - dissolving into one voice. The collective demands; that collective 'No' to power, however, is softened into dainty floral embroidery which women in the community would have sewn into protest banners. Paula’s piece suggests you can speak truth to power, but will they listen?

Both Katherine and Paula each win £500, paid for by all those who entered the competition. Congratulations to them both.

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The story of the Open Call does not end here. All of the finalists' artworks will be available to view online in the next few days. Then, in September, the entries that did not make it through to exhibition will go online, and the public will decide a People’s Choice winner who will be awarded with £100 worth of Bookaclass vouchers. This matters to us. This project began with an open call. It should end with an open vote.

To everyone who entered: Thank you. Whether your piece is on these walls or not, you are part of why this gallery is now open. To everyone who has supported the school, the shop, the building work, and this slightly stubborn idea that Scarborough can have a space for work that is not just seaside fare: thank you as well.

The exhibition is open Thursday–Sunday 11am-3pm until 25 October 2026 at Nicholas Cliff (34 St. Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough. YO11 2ES).

25/08/2026

This year marks 100 years since The General Strike of 1926 - the theme of our Open Call. We asked people to respond on postcards and newsprint. We sent out the materials. People that signed up made artworks on this material which they then returned to us. 41 artists were selected for exhibition and this Thursday 27th August is when the exhibition opens. Drinks will be served between 6pm-9pm, and two winners will be announced at 8pm.
Join us at 34 St. Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough. YO11 2ES.