Wherever you are, connect with our expert tutors through the Digital Studio — live-streamed from our studios for an in-studio feel online. Using dynamic lighting, multiple camera angles, and creative set-ups, these sessions offer a unique approach to observational drawing that’s only possible in a digital format.
With no need to commit to a full course, you can drop in to our two-hour evening sessions to support your practice, explore new ideas, or simply unwind. These classes focus on the expressive potential of the life room, with tutors guiding you through varied exercises and approaches.
This session pass gives you access to all Evening Life Drawing sessions in the Summer Term, at a 25% discount. Sessions included in this pass:
Monday 20 April, 18:30 - 20:30 - The Face as Landscape
This two-hour online life drawing session, led by tutor Marcus Cornish, focuses on close observation of the face, exploring the texture and structure of skin rather than traditional portrait shading.
Working from very close views of the model, students will study small asymmetries, lines and irregularities that give a face its character. Rather than drawing the whole head, the session concentrates on fragments of the face — wrinkles, folds and subtle shifts in form — approaching the face almost like a landscape.
Using a ballpoint pen or biro, students will build drawings through careful mark-making, using line to map the texture and topography of the skin.
Monday 27 April, 18.30 - 20.30 - Challenging Habits
Drawing the figure from life is a practice rich in history and one that can develop your drawing skills like no other; however, we can often fall into the same habits when drawing from life, as well as forgetting to challenge our preconceived ideas. This session, led by Fraser Scarfe, aims to disrupt some of those habits and provide ways of looking at life drawing afresh.
Through a series of different challenges, we will explore and reframe some of the fundamentals of drawing the model. Expect to re-examine some of the familiar components of drawing: line, tone and composition.
Using camera and visual effects we will draw in new ways, supported by reference images from artists who have done the same in their own practices, helping to push boundaries in picture making further.
Monday 11 May, 18.30 - 20.30 - Experimental Colour Printmaking
In this session, led by Tara Versey, students will explore drawing and printmaking from a live model using a direct trace-through monotype process with colour. Working through a series of short and longer poses, we will experiment with layering marks and tones to create expressive, painterly drawings.
Surfaces will be prepared using oil pastels or thinly rolled-out colour grounds. By placing thin paper over these prepared surfaces and drawing directly onto it, colour and texture are transferred onto the reverse side of the paper, producing soft, rich lines distinctive to the monotype process.
Monday 18 May, 18:30 - 20:30 - The Musician as Muse
This live, online session, led by tutor David Gardner, explores how the image of the musician can evoke sound, rhythm, emotion and narrative within drawing.
We will look at the iconography of the musician as muse throughout art history and contemporary picture making — from depictions of Orpheus on ancient Greek pottery to Franz Gertsch’s hyperreal paintings of Patti Smith in the 1970s, from Caravaggio’s The Musicians to Peter Doig’s recent House of Music exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery.
Working from a live model posed with a stringed instrument under colourful theatrical lighting, we will explore how gesture, colour and composition can suggest the atmosphere of musical performance.
Monday 1 June, 18:30 - 20:30 - Movement and Mind
This session, led by Aude Hérail Jäger, explores the connection between body, movement and mind through drawing. We’ll work in an expressive, meditative way to awaken creative abilities that are innate, direct and intuitive, but often lie dormant unless we consciously activate them.
Together, we’ll use simple strategies to deepen this connection: quieting the mind with breathing exercises, extending the eye–hand connection to the whole body, experimenting with different materials and mark-making, and drawing the model in movement.
Monday 8 June, 18:30 - 20:30 - Capturing Light
In this life drawing session, tutor Katy Papineau will guide you through drawing a figure posed in different kinds of light. Using colour materials on coloured paper, you'll explore the qualities of sunlight throughout the day. From the vibrant intensity of midday sun to the soft hues of the evening's golden hour, you'll learn to portray the dynamic and ever-changing light of summer. Drawing inspiration from art and film, we'll illuminate our model in ways that evoke the joy and warmth of summer days.
Details
- Please note there are no classes on Monday 4 May and Monday 25 May, due to the UK bank holidays.
- Please note our online models will not pose nude. Models will be semi-clothed.
- This session will be live-streamed through YouTube, link is available after purchase.
- Chat support available during the session.
- These sessions are designed so that students can engage with whatever materials they have to hand. Each session has a suggested material list that will allow you to get the most out of the classes.
Share your work on social media with the hashtag #RDSLiveStudio
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