The most amazing and unexpected joy coming out of lockdown and quarantine time is the efforts for life drawing groups in the UK and Europe to keep drawing life models, and not just from still images.
On instagram, I follow a few life drawing groups and communities in Europe where I usually go to draw when in Europe. Since the mid of March, there’s a bunch of them starting to offer online and live streaming life drawing. More the last 2–3 weeks that I almost could not keep up, mostly based in the UK and a few in Spain. I’ve started trying a few of them out, and within a few weeks,there’s a lot more offering different streams of Creative workshops too. Because it’s all online, the life models can be from all over the country in Europe. This is really amazing considering the few life drawings sessions and models variety in Singapore such as the one run by Creative Singapore’s Damien Thomasz. It has been refreshing to see the variety of European- based life models.
The majority of these groups are conducting classes through Zoom, and I think because of security and safety reasons, most life models prefers not to be 100% nude. This is not a big deal, since there’s a lot of different aspects of drawing life models that is challenging in a new way when you’re looking at them through a screen.
Having tried a few of them the last three weeks, not all of them work for me, in one sense, the ‘organizer or host’ could be talking too much, and while perhaps that’s a style some people like, I prefer more silence to concentrate on my drawings. Having said that, if you like a lot of feedback and continuous commentary to help you think through your life drawing, I will not rule it out. The fees ranges from ‘free and donate what you can’ to 4 - 7 pounds via paypal.me or bookwhen.com.
So, I’ve decided it would be useful to make and share a list, its not exhaustive as it seems they grow in numbers as we move into longer quarantine months. I’ll also give you my quick review of why I like or don’t like the ones I have joined.
So here we go, you can cut and paste the link or click the hyperlink:
- London Drawing. (www.londondrawing.com/online-creative-sessions/)
- The Jolly Sketcher Online (www.bookwhen.com/thejollysketcher)
She also offers free 30 minutes drawing by theme that you can join in case you’re not comfortable with the longer sessions.
- London Drawing Group (www.eventbrite.co.uk/london-drawing-group-11407647443)
- Art Model Collective https://artmodelcollective.com/event/paint-draw-from-amc-photo-references-during-isolation-veiled-marble/
If that’s not your thing, their instagram story shares a lot of different online classes by others, which is where I got some of the ones on this list.
- Cercle Artistic Sant Lluc https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCwS12fHWIos5AltFGHHVk4g
- Françoise, Artist, Conceptual Performance Contortionist https://instagram.com/oh.francoise?igshid=1k8nub5u04441
- Everybodys_lifedrawing https://instagram.com/everybodys_lifedrawing?igshid=6sk5uvv8kbx7
- Life Drawing Barcelona https://instagram.com/lifedrawingbarcelona?igshid=104hejhoi5uxq
- Adrian Dutton Life Drawing https://linktr.ee/adriandutton_life_drawing
- 2 B or Not 2 B Collective. https://instagram.com/2bornot2bcollective?igshid=xfpml6n2ohbh This one is a new one and I’ve got no comments as yet. They have a variety of classes and times.
So there you have it. I hope this is useful to somebody.
Let me know what you think once you’re tried some of them. Is it good, does it work for you? Love to hear your thoughts about this new reality we are currently experiencing.
Cheers and keep yourself safe!
Susan