Conté crayons are a hard drawing medium made from compressed powdered pigment mixed with clay, wax and a binder, moulded into rectangular sticks. Depending on the ratio of pigment to clay, they are graded according to their hardness on the HB scale, similar to graphite pencils. Their square shape enables them to be used to produce very fine lines, broad ma...
2020-04-29 08:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
( 'Pot and Soup Tureen' by Paul Cézanne)
If you're at home without a model to draw and are casting around for something to sketch, still life is a very accessible subject to study. There are always interesting and varied objects in our homes to work with and it provides an excellent opportunity...
2020-04-26 12:00:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Catherine has been life modelling in Brighton longer than Draw has existed - she is a committed model and artist but also holds the (not so secret) double identity of being the happier face between the painted-on-frown of Katinka the Drawing Circus clown. In this set of photos Catherine shows off her elegant and decidedly non-clown-like side.
Drawing on brown paper can sometimes make drawing a little bit easier. Why? Because when we draw on white paper, we are mostly working in one direction, from light to dark. Starting with a mid-tone and working towards both light and dark at the same time can help unify your drawing and also boost the contrast of your drawing. Initial marks can often be in t...
2020-04-22 08:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Mark is a musician and life model - once know for his messianic beard he now sports a clean jawline and hair that would be the envy of any 80's rock star. Like Ellie, in her recent life photo-set, he has a creative relationship with chairs. We're aiming for the clothed poses in these sets to be useful to illustrators telling visual stories with drawn characters and have included a walking seque...
2020-04-20 20:41:35 +0000 UTC View Post
This week on the Drawing From Home blog Lancelot is taking a look at interiors. You might feel like you've been staring at the same four walls for far too long, but drawing is not just a tool for picture making - its a way to slow down and see the world through a new lens. A drawing can be a mediation on space and situation as much as a means of picture-making and through drawing a famili...
2020-04-19 08:30:43 +0000 UTC View Post
The inimitable Bassie Gracie is our portait model for this week's photo set - we have a selection of images with a full rotation of hair up and down, by request from some of you guys! Gracie is life model, photography model, poet, musician and one third of the 2020-04-17 08:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Most people are familiar with charcoal, it’s a great medium to draw with and also great for beginners. It’s a bit messy but very forgiving as it is easy to put on and take off again and again. I love it for its atmospheric qualities and the range of tones and marks that can be made with it. Recently, I’ve been using charcoal in combination with acrylic gesso which is known as a primer for...
2020-04-14 08:00:59 +0000 UTC View Post
('Rabbits on a Log' by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait)
As Easter is upon us, this week's blog will be all about rabbits and art. Rabbits have been a fairly popular subject across drawing, painting and sculpture. We'll be taking a look at some inspirational examples, and then hopping into som...
2020-04-12 09:02:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Since starting at Draw in 2019, Ellie has become part of the furniture. A life model, performer, photographic model and make-up artist Ellie brings a darkly offbeat sense of humour, prodigious creativity and disarming kindness to all work at Draw. This new expanded photoset includes all of Ellie's original life poses, plus three previously unreleased sculpture rotations.
2020-04-10 08:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Alongside Lance's Sunday posts, we're going to be sharing new mid-week blog posts from our drawing tutors. These will focus on ways to improve your life drawing from home and are specially commissioned for the Draw Patreon. Our first series of 8 posts, by Shelley Morrow, will explore a different drawing material each week. In...
2020-04-08 09:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Animals are a great subject to draw, spanning a tremendous amount of variety of forms, poses, textures and colours. While you're at home, your pets are a readily available, if not entirely cooperative model, and we all have access to film and photography of animals online. For this week's Drawing From...
2020-04-05 08:13:24 +0000 UTC View Post
The Rise and Fall of the Drawing Circus was the tale of the assent of the Drawing Circus and it's dramatic decline following the murder of a circus clown. It has been played out in many forms over our decade of events and is an allegory for the creation of the Drawing Circus itself - inescapably self-referential and cyclical. It begins with Francesca Cluney, naked on a bare podium - the platoni...
2020-04-03 09:27:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Joseph (Joe) has become increasingly involved with Draw over the past year, both as a model and as a regular attendee of our life drawing classes. From a standing start he's become one our most committed models and a dedicated student of the pencil - check out his Instagram for drawings and witticisms! The...
2020-04-03 06:43:31 +0000 UTC View Post
To accompany Friday's release of new images we thought it might be handy to have some suggestions on how to draw figures from photographs at home! Ever on the case Lance has penned just such an article. As always, feel free to tag any drawings you make from the blog on social media so that we can see them and share them. (@Draw_Brighton / #drawbrighton / #drawingfromhome)
Once again...
2020-03-29 08:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Mark is a musician and life model, working across London and Sussex - if you're on instagram you can follow his work on @marklifemodel. He created a particularly Schiele-sque set of poses for this photo-set, with some excellent elbow action going on. Enjoy!
Ellie (aka @tasteslikedust) is a life model, photographic model and make-up artist, specialising in drag and horror make up (as some of you might remember from last years Halloween themed long pose!). Her life modelling photo-set is out in a couple of weeks on here, including some very creative ways to sit ...
2020-03-27 07:43:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Jade is a full-time life model, artist and all round creative power house - as well as modelling all over Sussex she runs her own life classes from home, the 'Drawversity' clothed pose at Draw and last years popular Black History Month life classes. These photos have been taken with sculpture in mind as well as two dimensional practices, with a 360 degree rotation of Jade's head - do let us kno...
2020-03-27 07:23:16 +0000 UTC View Post
We hope you enjoy this free photo-set, featuring Gracie and Ariane! Take a look at the terms of use below, and feel free to use download the images or use them straight from the screen as reference for your artwork. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch via on info@draw-brighton.co.uk.
Happy drawing,
Jake
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To keep you busy this Sunday, Lance's new Drawing From Home blog looks at sketching the self portrait in profile - this was commissioned with money provided by the Patreon and replaced his usual Saturday teaching - it is free and can be shared with anybody! As always, feel free to tag any drawings you make from the blog on social media so that we can see them and share them. (@Draw_...
2020-03-22 08:21:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Over the ten long years in which the Drawing Circus traveled the UK never had we posed in such an opulent venue as the Music Room of Brighton's Royal Pavilion. With respect to the antique carpets the conservators prohibited the sharpening of pencils in the Music Room, requiring us to employ a team or runners who on seeing a blunt pencil raised aloft would dash forth, take the pencil and leave t...
2020-03-21 18:47:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Firstly, a huge thank you to everybody who has pledged their support to our Patreon. From friends and existing members of the Draw community to benevolent strangers, your monthly contributions are keeping Draw running and keeping our artists, models and tutors paid. We are hugely grateful and I wanted to let you know a bit more about what we'll be sharing on here and how we'll be keeping in tou...
2020-03-20 17:18:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Today is the day we launch our Patreon (welcome!). This is in the context of a really difficult week for the whole life drawing community, where coronavirus concerns have killed all classes overnight. Never wanting to be pessimistic we have our positive faces forward and we have a plan.
We are starting online fund-raising today to help Draw afloat, alongside a new set of onlin...
2020-03-18 09:03:05 +0000 UTC View Post
While everybody is locked indoors we wanted to put a positive spin on things, so over the next three weeks Draw tutor Lancelot Richardson and I are going to be collecting ideas to inspire you while you are Drawing From Home. As well collecting tutorials on the blog we'll be sharing images on our social media with the hashtag #drawingfromhome if you'd like to join in!
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