The Royal Drawing School is an independent, not-for-profit resource that aims to raise the standard For some people, drawing is the easiest way of thinking.
The Royal Drawing School is an independent, not-for-profit resource that aims to raise the standard and profile of drawing through teaching and practice. We are one of only a few institutions in the world offering in-depth, quality tuition in drawing from observation. Drawing is a primary language natural to all human beings, and fundamental to all aspects of learning and thinking from childhood o
Operating as usual
21/09/2024
Welcome back to our Young Artists! 👋
After a summer break, Saturday courses are starting again today. We can't wait to see the work that you make this term! 🎨
Interested in courses for 10-18 years old? Join our Young Artists mailing list: https://tny.app/1qd3gv05 💌
20/09/2024
Our this week is interiors! Whether your are capturing the essence of your home, your studio, impressive architecture or the inside of your garden shed - interiors and our relationship with them are endlessly fascinating.
What does a depicted interior tell you about an artist? What symbols can we decode from the objects and scene we are presented with? What lies behind the usually closed door?
This is the last week of London Open House 2024 - have you visited anywhere interesting?
Artworks:
Caitlin Stone
Joana Galego
Jack Mcgarity
Katie Whitford
Alice Macdonald
Pia Bramley
Sophie Edwards
Stephanie Forrest
Mary Herbert
Chi Park
19/09/2024
With just 6 days left to apply to our Online Drawing Development Year (ODDY), we've gathered some quotes from our students that may help you to decide.
The Online Drawing Development Year is a three-term remote learning course starting in January 2025. Designed by artists, for artists, this part-time course allows you balance the development of your practice with other commitments by curating your own programme of courses that suit your availability.
You will benefit from:
🔹 Three online daytime drawing classes per week every term
🔹 Core classes exclusively for Online Drawing Development Year students
🔹 Access to our termly Digital Streaming Studio courses
🔹 Tutorials with a member of our faculty
🔹 Mentoring sessions with a Core Tutor
🔹 Peer to peer crits
🔹 Termly online series of lectures
🔹 Professional development sessions
🔹 The opportunity to have two days of in-person core classes at our Shoreditch studios
🔔 Application deadline 25th September.
Start your application today: https://tny.app/ggpsuvmx
18/09/2024
Next week, our free Creative Conversations series returns with dialogues between artists, curators, writers and more. We are kicking off with -
The Story of Drawing: An Alternative History of Art | in-conversation with Claudia Tobin.
📍 Royal Drawing School, 19-22 Charlotte Road, London
📅 Wednesday, 25th September 2024
🎟️ Free (booking required)
⌚️ 19:00 – 21:00
Drawing has always offered creative latitude. Artists have long turned to it to express thoughts, fantasies, traumas and emotions that would have been impossible in any other medium: whether Francisco Goya sketching his bitter insights into human nature, Henri Michaux recording his mescaline-inspired dreams or Yayoi Kusama drawing discomfiting ‘infinity nets’ in post-war US-occupied Japan. Taking Susan Owens’s recent book 'The Story of Drawing' a starting point, in this in-conversation, Susan and Claudia will explore drawing’s role as an arena for experiment and candid expression.
Limited free tickets available: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-story-of-drawing-an-alternative-history-of-art-susan-owens-in-conversation-with-claudia-tobin-tickets-1014656483857
Artwork: 'Crouching Tiger' Eugène Delacroix, (1839), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Credit: Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in honor of Sanford I. Weill, 2013
17/09/2024
Good news for young artists aged 15-18 looking to develop their drawing skills while exploring London’s art scene. A few places for our Explore course are still available...
💬"The Explore course was really great! Getting to see all those different objects and pieces of art has been amazing! And I really improved in my ‘looking and seeing’ skills, so now when I draw from life, I draw what I see, instead of what I think I’m seeing. The tutors have been really supportive and knowledgeable! I enjoyed the course a lot."
🔸 For ages 15-18
🔸 21st September - 23rd November
🔸 Book now: https://tny.app/7sboipxt
We’ve confirmed the first venues for the course: week 1 will be at Tate Modern, followed by Tate Britain in week 2, and Courtauld Gallery in week 3...
Classes start this Saturday, with tutors Daisy Nutting and Melina Doumy.
16/09/2024
🍁 Welcome to all our students starting Autumn Term this week!
Let us know in the comments which courses are you taking and what are your aspirations for the term...
We can’t wait to see what you’re working on!
📆 Last places on courses starting this week available: https://tny.app/le0jvnmk
Artwork by Ellie Lonsdale
14/09/2024
Elizabeth McCarten is a painter of Anglo/Portuguese descent with a strong interest in light and space. Her take us from Portugal to London, revealing how her personal inspirations influence her work as a tutor:
🔸 A Summer highlight was visiting, ‘Casa Das Historias Paula Rego’ in the seaside town of Cascais, Portugal. Cascais is a short journey from Lisbon and it is a magical place to visit with beautiful beaches. Entry into the museum is €5 and has a fantastic collection of her Drawings, Etchings and Paintings. It also has a lovely garden and café where you can enjoy a refreshing drink and relax.
🔸 Paula Rego is an artist I like to reference in my Life Drawing: Observation and Imagination classes, it’s impossible to not find inspiration from the wealth of work she created throughout her life. She is able to use a combination of narrative, allegory and drawing from direct observation in the most imaginative and inventive ways, shining a light on both the social and political issues in which her work is rooted in. Rego is someone I have looked at since a young age and continues to inspire me in my adult life.
🔸 Allowing ourselves as adults to play through drawing, creating a space where we can take a leap or a risk on a different approach is where I feel the most productive and energised to avoid that feeling of ‘stuckness’. I like to bring this to my teaching particularly when exploring imagination as it is such a personal experience!
🔸 If you’re in London and have a craving for a little taste of Portugal I would recommend, Lisboa Patisserie on Golbourne Road in West London. This is a special place to me as I have frequented this cafe from a young age with my mother who is Portuguese. I don’t think their packaging has ever changed and I always feel a sense of comfort picking up a box of delicious Portuguese pastel de natas or a bola de berlim. Their sweet, delicious pastries make a great studio treat with a cup of tea or coffee!
12/09/2024
Whether you're looking to relax your mind after a busy day or invigorate it with a new challenge, we have a drawing course for that! From mindfulness to learning from the Old Masters, from portraits to exploring new technology, make the most of your autumn evenings... Highlighted the courses with the last few places available:
Tuesday
🔹 Evening Life Drawing with
from 1st October
🔹 Drawing Graphic Narratives with
from 17th September, Online
Wednesday
🔹 Evening Life Drawing with &
from 18th September
Thursday
🔹 Mindfulness and Drawing with , &
from 19th September
🔹 Evening Life Drawing with
from 19th September
🔹 Digital Drawing: Life Observed with
from 19th September, Online
Friday
🔹 Evening Portrait with Sharon Brindle, and
from 20th September
🔹 Drawing at the National Gallery with Andy Pankhurst and
from 20th September, Out of House
🟠 See all Evening courses: https://tny.app/cz0rb27a
Artwork by
Meet Marcelo Albagli, an artist living in Brazil. He joined the Online Drawing Development Year (ODDY) in 2024. See what a typical day looks like for him on the course 🎬️
📅 If you’re interested in finding out more about the Online Drawing Development Year before applying, join us LIVE on Instagram on Monday, 16th September at 1pm: https://www.instagram.com/royaldrawingschool/
🎨 Ready to start your application? Follow this link: https://tny.app/ggpsuvmx
11/09/2024
👋 Welcome to our new Drawing Year students!
They're in the studios for Fresher's Week, getting to know faculty and starting to draw! We can't wait to see the work they produce over the next year...
ℹ️ The Drawing Year is a one-year postgraduate-level course that offers up to thirty students the chance to develop their artistic practice through drawing from observation. There are no fees, and all students receive a studio space in Hackney.
Applications for Drawing Year 2025-26 will open in November and close in April 2025.
07/09/2024
As the leaves start to blaze, the plants retreat and the days get shorter, this week our is Autumn 🍂
Does your practice change as the seasons change? How does more time indoors affect your drawing? Do you notice a pull towards a different colour palette?
Tag us in your autumnal drawings!
Artworks:
Sammi Lynch
Yasmin Goodison-Braithwaite
Alice Lockhart
Keziah Philipps
Chi Park
Ella Wright
Frith Angel
Lucy Clitheroe
Thomas Traherne
07/09/2024
Megan Landes is an artist, physician and professor living and working in Toronto, Canada. She joined the Online Drawing Development Year in 2024.
"I am surprised that a real community has been developing throughout the year - and the strength of relationships and getting to know each other despite being on opposite sides of the world."
🔗 Read Megan's full student story on our website. Link in bio.
📆 Join us for a final Open Day next Monday 9 September, 2pm (GMT)
🔔 Register now: https://tny.app/hbtozg4p
06/09/2024
Jake Garfield is a London-based artist working across printmaking, drawing and painting. His practice explores art-historical and pop-cultural references to reflect on the nature of artifice, selfhood and the act of making. He graduated from The Drawing Year in 2013 and teaches various printmaking courses at the School.
Here he shares five free exhibitions and five books that inspire him...
5 Free Exhibitions in London:
🔹 National Gallery - 'Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look'. An exhibition of Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism Of Christ and two Hockney paintings that include reproductions of it as pictures-within-pictures. If you like the Piero, head downstairs at the NG for their early Italian Renaissance paintings - my personal favourites.
🔹 British Museum - 'Contemporary Collecting: David Hockney to Cornelia Parker'. A selection of recently acquired works on paper. A good one for anyone interested in taking my printmaking class at RDS. A diverse selection of prints and drawings by contemporary artists (and even one of mine).
🔹 Bold Tendencies - 'Communion'. Works exploring ideas around community, social relations and contemporary life by Saelia Aparicio, Adam Farah-Saad, Olu Ogunnaike, Yoko Ono, Martin Parr.
🔹 Cristea Roberts Gallery - 'Remastered'. A show focusing on appropriation from artists on the gallery’s roster.
🔹 Kenwood House. Always open and always free. Check out the Rembrandt self-portrait and Vermeer’s 'The Guitar Player'.
5 Books:
🔹 'Banal Nightmare' - Halle Butler. It’s about a millennial called Moddie returns back to the Mid-Western town she grew up in after a break up.
🔹 'Remainder' - Tom McCarthy. About a man who, after receiving a large settlement from an accident, becomes obsessed with recreating things he can only partly remember.
🔹 'Antkind' - Charlie Kaufman. As absurd as it is long: 5 stars.
🔹 '10:04' - Ben Lerner. A beautiful work of auto-fiction - rich in cultural references.
🔹 'How The World Thinks' - Julian Baggini. This book is about ‘comparative philosophy’, examining how similar concepts have been explored across different cultures.
30/08/2024
⏳ Counting down to Autumn Term! As our courses fill up, we've picked out a few that still have some space. Join us in September.
Monday
🔹 Drawing at the British Museum with , &
🔹 Drawing Space: Interior & Exterior with Martin Shortis &
🔹 Drawing the Contemporary Portrait with &
🔹 Evening Life Drawing and Anatomy with &
All Monday courses: https://tny.app/tcsvn8gr
Tuesday
🔹 Drawing Laboratory with
🔹 Where Drawing Meets Words with & (online)
🔹 Evening Drawing Graphic Narratives with (online)
All Tuesday courses: https://tny.app/hwif1yg6
Wednesday
🔹 Drawing at the V&A with Nicola Durvasula, & Joanna Mulji
🔹 Drawing Space: Personal and Global Environments with & (online)
All Wednesday courses: https://tny.app/vqku4na4
Thursday
🔹 Drawing a Story with , &
🔹 Mindfulness and Drawing with , &
🔹 Drawing Flux and Flow: Watercolour and Ink with & Nicola Durvasula (online)
All Thursday courses: https://tny.app/sg3zjwau
Friday
🔹 Friday Evening Portrait with Sharon Brindle, &
🔹 A Studio/Room of One's Own with & (online)
All Friday courses: https://tny.app/ck2u7u3q
Saturday
🔹 Sculpture and Form with , 21 Sept - 23 Nov, 10am - 5pm
All Saturday courses: https://tny.app/9k18as1n
28/08/2024
Congratulations to our Young Artists on completing Summer School!
So much amazing work was produced over the three weeks, with different subjects explored: from the natural world to storytelling, drawing London streets, studying London artists, theatre, creating costumes and characters, and how to create a portfolio.
Here's our selection from the Portfolio Preparation course.
🔗 To book the Young Artists course for ages 10 to 18 starting in September, visit: https://tny.app/xlhaavw2
27/08/2024
💬 “I was sceptical about taking these classes on Zoom, but it has been a revelation and I love the flexibility of it, it very much works for me in my current circumstances.” Sonja Witts, ODDY 2024
Designed by artists, for artists, the Online Drawing Development Year is an innovative course that has been devised to allow arts graduates and those with a developing studio practice, to benefit from live online drawing tuition and a structured critical dialogue with tutors, mentors, and peers over the course of three terms.
🔔 Application deadline 25th September.
💻️ The Online Drawing Development Year is designed to fit into your schedule. As a part-time course, you'll have the flexibility to curate your own program each term, allowing you to strike a balance between work, studio time, and other commitments.
🌍 Whether you're based outside of London, abroad, or have specific access needs, our course is delivered entirely online, ensuring that it's accessible to all.
🔔 Register for our last online Open Day and learn more: https://tny.app/hbtozg4p
26/08/2024
Happy International Dog Day! 🐶
Dogs make some of the best models — capturing their personalities on paper is both a challenge and a joy. Have you tried drawing your pets?
Artworks by:
Josephine Birch
Rose de Borman
Michelle Cioccoloni
Shana Lohrey
Sammi Lynch
Meg Buick
Joe Fox
Naomi Trevor
23/08/2024
'Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and... stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to 'walk about' into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?' - Wassily Kandinksky
Join one of our courses exploring drawing, music and theatre interceptions:
🔹 Movement and Poetry: https://tny.app/erl5ucfa
🔹 Drawing: Intimate Dramas of Mood and Colour: https://tny.app/ynkr7j57
🔹 Drawing: Costume, Opera and the Stage: https://tny.app/z0u7dgzx
Artworks by:
Joe Fox
Oliver Williamson
Eloise Lawson
Ben Williams
Jesse Ajilore
21/08/2024
There are some exciting open call competitions and exhibition opportunities coming up soon. Here we've chosen our highlights:
🔸 East London Art Prize founded by Bow Arts celebrates and promotes art made in the cultural hive of east London. The winner receives a cash prize of £15,000 and a solo exhibition.
⏳️ Apply by 27th August 2024
🔸 Developing Your Creative Practice from Arts Council England is a programme offering grants ranging from £2,000 to £12,000 to support individual artists and creative practitioners focusing on their professional development.
⏳️ Apply by 22nd August 2024
🔸 Ingram Prize includes the acquisition of works, exhibition opportunities, and potential residencies, aimed at recent graduates from UK art schools.
⏳️ Apply by 2nd September 2024
🔸 British Art Prize 2024 offers a total prize fund of over £10,000, including cash prizes and art materials. Open to all UK artists across various mediums, with shortlisted works featured in a London exhibition.
⏳️ Apply by 26th September 2024
🔸 Discerning Eye exhibition is an annual open submission exhibition for small works. The selected works will be exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London. The prizes include the ING Purchase Prize, worth £5,000.
⏳️ Apply by 30th August 2024
🔸 Black Artist Grant from Creative Debuts is a monthly £500 grant for Black artists in the UK to support their creative work. Open to various disciplines.
⏳️ Apply anytime!
🔸 The Elephant Trust offers grants between £2000 and £5000 to artists in the visual arts, small organisations and galleries throughout the UK for making or producing new work or exhibitions.
⏳️ Apply by 20th October 2024
🔸 The Fenton Arts Trust supports the artists at the beginning of their careers. Each year there are approximately thirty to forty beneficiaries.
⏳️ Apply before Autumn
Artwork by Kate Kirk
20/08/2024
Meet Tom Oxley, an artist living and working in London. He joined the Online Development Year in 2024.
💬 "As much as I see myself as an illustrator, I feel that I had moved too far away from fine art. I think doing illustration tightened me up, affecting my work. I wanted to get back to my roots, which for me meant drawing. When younger I was a Young Artist with the Royal Drawing School. I think this was life changing for me."
Sign up for the Open Day coming on 22nd August: https://tny.app/yjt8quxn
16/08/2024
Today's is reading! 📚️
How does language, narrative, storytelling and text influence your drawing? Leave your book recommendations in the comments!
We've gathered a list of books our tutors recommend:
Books about art:
🔸 Black Dog Folklore by Mark Norman
🔸 Albrecht Dürer: Complete Collection of Prints
🔸 Marlene Dumas: Tate Retrospective catalogue
🔸 Istanbul by Ara Güler’s (which goes hand in hand with Orhan Pamuk’s non-fictional novel Istanbul)
🔸 Book Of Symbols by Taschen
🔸 The Lonely City: An examination of loneliness, art, and the modern city by Olivia Laing
🔸 How to be Both by Ali Smith
🔸 Spring Cannot be Cancelled: Conversations with Martin Gayford and David Hockney
Fiction:
🔸 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
🔸 Reasons to be Cheerful by Nine Stibbe
🔸 Small in the City by Sydney Smith
Artworks by:
Jesse Ajilore
Leo Macdonald Oulds
Kate Walton
13/08/2024
"I want paint to work as flesh. I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them."
Lucian Freud
Join a portrait course starting in Autumn:
In studio:
🔹 Drawing the Contemporary Portrait (9 sessions), Mondays from 30th September
🔹 Portraits: Drawing and Monotype (9 sessions), Wednesdays from 2nd October
🔹 Friday Evening Portrait (10 sessions), Fridays from 20th September
Online:
🔹 Drawing a Head (5 sessions), Mondays from 16th September
🔹 Portraits and Self-Portraits (10 sessions), Tuesdays from 17th September
🔗 Book now: https://tny.app/e4tqr6f3
Artwork by Allegra Gordon
09/08/2024
'I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.' - Henri Matisse
How are you planning to stay cool in this warmer weather? Matisse was a passionate swimmer and found much of the inspiration for his work underwater.
Artworks by:
Lucile Haefflinger
Christina Kimeze
Jack Mcgarity
Alice Macdonald
Oliver Hoffmeister
Ned Elliott
08/08/2024
We had a brilliant time running a drawing session for our friends and recently. Thanks to for leading such a great class! ✏️
David: “The Pentagram studios were beautiful and steeped with history.
It was a full house and many of the Pentagram team were keen to join in the life drawing session, having not done any life drawing since their art school days. They embraced all of the exercises with vigour and good fun, and the outcomes were superb!”
Did you know that we run bespoke courses and corporate workshops? Visit our website or email [email protected] to find out more.
08/08/2024
We had a brilliant time running a drawing session for our friends Pentagram design studio recently. Thanks to David Gardner for leading such a great class! ✏️
David: "The Pentagram studios were beautiful and steeped with history.
It was a full house and many of the Pentagram team were keen to join in the life drawing session, having not done any life drawing since their art school days. They embraced all of the exercises with vigour and good fun, and the outcomes were superb!"
Did you know that we run bespoke courses and corporate workshops? Visit our website: https://tny.app/p2u99ida
or email [email protected] to find out more.
07/08/2024
If you are spending summer in London, there's lots of exciting exhibitions to visit. Add these to your list:
🔹 'Judy Chicago: Revelations' at the Serpentine Galleries is a largest solo exhibition of the artist, author, educator, cultural historian and feminist
🔹 'Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920' at Tate Britain
🔹 Firelei Báez: Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) at South London Gallery. Báez exhibits new immersive installations and large abstract paintings. She uses rich colours, elements from nature, sound and light to reflect on complex colonial histories.
🔹 'Francis Alÿs: Ricochets' at the Barbican is a new immersive exhibition celebrating the universality and ingenuity of children's games
🔹 'Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider' at Tate Modern
🔹 'In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine' at the Royal Academy - groundbreaking modernist art made in Ukraine between 1900 and the 1930s
Artwork: Judy Chicago, In the Beginning, from Birth Project, 1982 (detail), Prismacolor on paper, 65 x 389 in. (165.1 x 988.06 cm), © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo © Donald Woodman/ARS, NY
06/08/2024
Our online programme brings the RDS studio to you, wherever you are 🌍️From drop-in one hour sessions and weekly courses to an intensive three month programme, there is an online course to suit everyone!
📅 Autumn Term courses start in September.
🔗 See the full programme of courses: https://tny.app/0gqxqlt5
Photo features Carolina Sardinha, our Online Drawing Development Year student in her studio.
05/08/2024
Meet Marcelo Albagli , an artist living in Brazil. He joined the Online Drawing Development Year (ODDY) in 2024.
💬 "It is really important to consider that you are going to get really busy. The courses are many, there will be a lot of extra sessions, and you still need to find the time to draw on your own. It is a lot of work indeed. Besides that, I would recommend having an open mind and not worrying about achieving final / resolved drawings. In my opinion, the ODDY is really about having the chance to try out different approaches and methods."
🔗 To read more about Marcelo's journey: https://rb.gy/or4xj2
📅 If you're interested in finding out more about the Online Drawing Development Year, join us for the Open Day tomorrow, on:
6 August, 6pm
22 August, 6pm
9 September, 2pm
To sign up for the Open Day: https://rb.gy/9lpfl5
Come work with us at the Royal Drawing School! 👋
🔹 Technician Manager
Lead our studios and printing facilities at Charlotte Road and SPACE Studios, Hackney. Manage a team of technicians and support our courses, exhibitions, and events.
⏱️ Apply by 7th August
🔗 https://www.royaldrawingschool.org/about/jobs/technician-manager/
🔹 Drawing Year & ODDY Administrator
⏱️ Apply by 4th August (closing soon!)
🔗 https://www.royaldrawingschool.org/about/jobs/drawing-year-oddy-administrator/
02/08/2024
Feet! 👣 Felt to be such a challenge to draw that many of us avoid them. But have you ever wondered how expressive our feet can be? See how these artists have focused on the foot and produced such varied responses.
This is your cue to take on the challenge of feet this week!
Artworks by:
Christabel MacGreevy
Tess Tomassini
Luca Guarino
Yiwei Xu
Marco Robert Allegretti
Dani Trew
Jake Fisk
Sophie-Nicole Dodds
Louise Boulter
| Monday | 9am - 9pm |
| Tuesday | 9am - 9pm |
| Wednesday | 9am - 9pm |
| Thursday | 9am - 9pm |
| Friday | 9am - 9pm |
| Saturday | 10am - 5pm |
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Signature and Handwriting Creatively Welcome to my page please subscribe to be part of creative writing skills
Little FRESH Independent and fantastically messy art play sessions for 18mths - 4yrs
The Seasons Art Class Orpington Over 14 weeks course.Step by step we make easy and fun. From Beginners to Improvers. Just like you!
Crafty Craft Art Club PERSONALIZED ART LESSONS BUNDLE at your place. With Crafty Craft, the children will have a personalized program that follows their inclinations, in order to improve their artistic skills while having fun.
Anime lover. 👉Uwu👈 Mahal na kita sa. Paraan na Ako lang Ang nakaka alam yieeee
Mudlife CIC Pottery is a passion for us. Our mission is to introduce new hands to this ancient craft.
Paint by Naqaso NAQASO is a high-quality brand of Art and Painting Products.
The Jewellery Maverick Studio & Workshops 1:1 beginners jewellery workshops. Learn basic jewellery making skills such as cutting metal, soldering and polishing to make your own jewellery. The workshop takes place in a well equipped jewellery making studio in East London.