Sketchbook Submission: The Drawing Year 2024-25

Physical sketchbook drop off takes place at the Royal Drawing School on:

• Monday 8th April: 10:00 - 18:00
• Tuesday 9th April: 10:00 - 18:00
• Wednesday 10th April: 10:00 - 18:00
  
  

Labelling Sketchbooks

All sketchbooks must be clearly labelled as follows. Please attach a label to the top right-hand corner of each sketchbook with your full name and a contact number. Additionally, we recommend writing the same information on the front page of each sketchbook

Sketchbook submission options

We have put in place three ways to receive sketchbooks - By post, in-person drop-off or digitally.

You may submit sketchbooks via any of the following means. Our preference is still to receive physical sketchbooks wherever possible as we feel these offer better support to an applicant’s digital entries.

1.Postal Entry
Please ensure that sketchbooks are well packaged & protected for transit. All postage must be paid for by the applicant in advance.

We will be receiving postal entries between now and Wed 10th April

Please post sketchbooks to the to the following address:

Drawing Year Applications
Royal Drawing School Shoreditch
19-22 Charlotte Road
London, EC2A 3SG

Returns
Following the selection process the Royal Drawing School can post sketchbooks back to you. If you would like us to do this, please include a fully paid stamped addressed envelope within your sketchbook submission.

Please do not include cash or postage vouchers with your sketchbooks, this cannot be accepted (will be returned to you) and we will contact you to arrange another way of returning your sketchbooks.

Please note: The Royal Drawing School accept no liability for loss or damage to sketchbooks during any part of the application process.

2.Physical Drop Off
Sketchbooks can be delivered in person to the Royal Drawing School on the following days:

• Monday 8th April: 10:00 - 18:00
• Tuesday 9th April: 10:00 - 18:00
• Wednesday 10th April: 10:00 - 18:00

If delivering in person your sketchbook will still need to be fully labelled in advance with your full name.

Please deliver sketchbooks to:

Royal Drawing School Shoreditch
19-22 Charlotte Road
London, EC2A 3SG

3.Digital Entry
We appreciate that some applicants may not be in a position to post or deliver physical sketchbooks. Considering this, we will be accepting digital submissions in place of physical sketchbooks when necessary. Our preference is still to receive physical sketchbooks wherever possible as we feel these offer better support to an applicant’s digital entries.

Sketchbooks support your application in showing us your working process and visual ideas. If submitting digital sketchbooks, we would ask that you please endeavour to send photographs clearly showing that the work is sketchbook based. Additional images of complete works outside of the sketchbook format may not be considered.

Please arrange any digital images into two folders – one for each sketchbook.

• A maximum of 20 images per sketchbook submitted
• 2 Folders labelled in the following way
• max images size 4mb per image
• applicantname_sketchbook1or2

Any digital entries should be submitted using WeTransfer to:  

drawingyear@royaldrawingschool.org

Please include your full name and applicant number in the subject line and body of the email.

General Guidelines for Sketchbook Entries

Your sketchbook submission must consist of:

• A maximum of 2 sketchbooks only per candidate
• No books larger than A3 in size
• Single sheets may be submitted as long as they are bound together in a secure fashion so as to constitute a book of work
• No loose or rolled sheets of work
• No Portfolios

TOP TIP: If you work on loose sheets, we recommend buying a blank sketchbook and paper corners (the ones used in photo albums) to slot your drawings into. The paper corners will hold your work in place without damaging it through glue or other binding.

• Unfortunately, we are not able to accept or review sketchbooks that do not meet these criteria. Folders and portfolios of loose works are not eligible.
• The Royal Drawing School accepts no liability for the loss and or damage of works submitted as part of the application process.
• The Royal Drawing School can arrange the return of your sketchbooks via post or courier on your behalf. Applicants must include a fully paid and stamped addressed envelope or similar if they would like books returning. The Royal Drawing School will not incur any costs for returning applicants sketchbooks.
• Sketchbooks not collected within the designated time frame will be disposed of.

Important - please note:

• Unfortunately, we cannot give feedback on unsuccessful applications under any circumstances.
• All sketchbooks are submitted at the applicant’s risk.
• Applicants are responsible for arranging the collection of your sketchbooks after selection. We cannot be responsible for posting sketchbooks back unless a stamped addressed envelope has been included at drop-off.
  
  
  

Sketchbook Collection

Once the initial selection process has taken place, we will be in touch about collecting sketchbooks, for which we have two options:

• Postal Returns
• Open collection days

More information will be emailed to applicants nearer the time, but so you have dates for your diary, please see the scheduled open collection dates below:

• Monday 6th May
• Tuesday 7th May

and

• Monday 20th May
• Tuesday 21st May

Our thanks once again for your interest in The Drawing Year and we wish you every success with your application!

Kind regards,

Fraser Scarfe