We were inundated by over 800 guests our Shoreditch gallery last Thursday night who came to view more than 300 drawings by our very talented outgoing Drawing Year students at the opening of their end of year exhibition. We’ll be sad to say goodbye to the Class of 2013, who’ve produced some incredible work this year, culminating in a diverse and impressive exhibition.

It seems this year group has a bright future to look forward to, and already includes the winners of three important external awards – Fraser Scarfe, winner of the ING Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary, Meg Buick, winner of the Rabley SKETCH 2013 Student Award and Kristian Fletcher, winner of the Jerwood Drawing Prize Student Award. Another student, Laura Footes, was an ‘Artist of the Day’ at Flowers Central this year as part of their prestigious solo exhibitions series.

Our External Assessment Board also awarded several prizes to students they felt had shown exceptional talent and promise, and we were delighted to have the Board’s Chair, Andrea Rose, Director of Visual Arts at the British Council, in attendance to present them on the night. The list of awards (all of equal value) ran as follows:

Patron’s Prize: Kathryn Maple

Chairman’s Prize: Meg Buick

Printing Prize: Jake Garfield

Graphic Novel Prize: Claire Price

External Assessment Board Prizes: Kirsty Buchanan, Laura Footes, Maude Hewlings, Justine King

The exhibition is on from now until 17 January, so come along and be inspired, spot the art stars of the future or pick up an original Christmas gift (most of the work is for sale – prices range from £40–£3,000, with 75% of proceeds going to the artist and 25% going to the School to support our ongoing educational programmes)…

Bright yellow vinyl lighting up the night from our Charlotte Road window

The gallery, eerily quiet before the stampede…

Andrea Rose, Director of Visual Arts at the British Council and Chair of our External Assessment Board, presenting the evening’s awards.

Guests looking at the display cabinets of students’ sketchbooks and graphic novel work…

…Rebecca Harper’s wry portraits of Londoners, drawn on the hoof

…Madeleine Boase’s graphic short story about drawing in The National Gallery, ‘Looking and Seeing’.

…and Leon Pozniakow’s mythical re-imaginings in red chalk and charcoal.

The Drawing Year 2012-13 End of Year Exhibition

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

6th December 2013 – 17 January 2014 / 9am to 9pm, Monday – Friday

Closed for Christmas and New Year between Saturday 21st December and Wednesday 1st January inclusive

To learn more about The Drawing Year full scholarship programme click here.