Life Drawing in Schools

What are Drawing Pods?
Drawing Pods are bespoke drawing courses or workshops for groups or individuals taught by Royal Drawing School faculty who are all practicing contemporary artists. We organise corporate workshops, bespoke workshops for groups, life drawing in schools, drawing courses in museums and galleries, drawing workshops at events and festivals and private tuition. Workshops can be held at your place of work, in your home, in a hired space or at your event, or in our fully equipped studios. 

Proceeds from bespoke drawing courses will go towards funding the Royal Drawing School’s charitable programmes.

Life Drawing in Schools
With the new emphasis on drawing in the National Curriculum for Art and Design, our extra-curricular life drawing courses taught by our specialist drawing faculty are designed to complement learning at GCSE, A-Level and Pre-U. The practice of drawing from observation will help develop skills, build confidence in the analysis of visual imagery and add diversity to portfolios for applications to further study. Drawing is a crucial route to innovation across the creative disciplines and beyond, from fashion, fine art and animation, to film making, product and graphic design, architecture and engineering. 

The Royal Drawing School has a faculty of over 65 expert drawing tutors all of whom are practising artists, with experience of teaching at a range of levels from school years 5 to 13, through to foundation and postgraduate level. We regularly work with over 40 professional life models with whom we have a long standing and established practise. We are primarily a London-based organisation but we also have tutors based across the UK, so contact us to see if we operate in an area near you.

How it works
Courses can last any duration required but we generally recommend five to ten sessions in a term. We aim to fit in with school timetables by running sessions before school, during timetabled art classes, after school or on Saturdays. We will work with your art department to produce a course which is tailored to the needs of the school and the students. All materials and equipment are provided for the duration of the course. These courses are generally run at the school’s venue however during holiday periods we might be able to accommodate classes in our studios for an additional fee.

Proceeds from our Life Drawing in Schools programme will help fund means tested scholarships on the Royal Drawing School’s Young Artists Programme for 10–18 year olds.

“Drawing helps you to put your thoughts in order. It can make you think in different ways"- what lovely advice for our aspiring young artists, not only to hear but also to help understand the reason behind the visit from The Royal Drawing School. As the day went on, the progression and confidence in the students’ work was amazing. All pupils took on everything the tutor said and applied it to their work. It is incredibly challenging to draw from life but the students didn’t let this phase them. It was clear that our pupils loved the experience and will be able to take away these skills and apply it to their own work. All work created in the session will be used in their coursework as well. A big thank you to The Royal Drawing School for visiting our aspiring young artists, it was an absolute pleasure and we very much hope to have them back soon.”

Mrs Keli Thomas, Shiplake College (Assistant Head of Lower School, Art)