A weekly drawing session could do you a world of good…
At House of Toad, we’re hosting a weekly drawing club, open to the public and free for all coworkers and residents to join. We run a weekly session at Sloans in the centre of Glasgow and have been based there for almost 10 years - before which time we were at the good ol’ Flying Duck, which we do miss dearly. After 16 years of providing nudes for you to sketch, we are still going strong - it would seem that our innate love of drawing never dies…
The Monday Drawing Club is really popular, with around 60-80 people popping up every week. Our audience isn’t all artists though, like you might expect. We have newcomers every week, people who have never sketched before. You don’t need to know how to draw to attend, it’s for anyone and everyone.
The main thing I want to mention to YOU GUYS, though, is that it is so very relaxing. It’s the perfect antidote to a day spent on the laptop and your phone. It’s 2 hours where you can have a full digital detox AND absorb some creative energy from the other sketchers in the room. And develop a new skill. It’s 2 hours of calm. Ok I know, when you’re struggling with your sketch and you think what you’ve produced is a pile of rubbish, some can find it a bit stressful, but if you can take the pressure off, and use those 2 hours as a chance to unwind, flow and just focus on trying to be present, and to represent the subject matter in front of you, you will really enjoy it - it does me a world of good. Like meditation!
And so on Wednesday nights, we would like to invite you all to join us for a drawing club after work at House of Toad. From 6-8pm (perfect as an afterwork scribble if you work onsite or nearby) we’ll gather and sketch. We will kick off with life drawing (drawing the nude form from life), so there will be a live model posing for us. We’ll have around 15-25 people in the room, some music, maybe a few drinks, and we’ll draw. We are open for art students working on their portfolio - if this is you, please get in touch direct! We will have drawing boards to borrow, paper and some materials but you are very welcome to bring your own. We are working on getting some easels so that we can offer a nice big messy and expressive painting class in the near future!
For future weeks we are also thinking about a portrait club, still lives, self portraits and some other taught sessions (watercolours, prints, sculpting figures with clay and/or wire - check out our friend Agnes Jones, a brilliant local artist who creates life drawings using wire). We’ll go with the flow and see what you fancy. But I honestly want to welcome you ALL to give this a go. Everyone can draw - we all did it as kids. You can do it now too.
As we have limited capacity (we will just be using one room initially), it would be great if you could book your spot in advance. If you’re a paying member at HOT, get in touch direct and we’ll ping you your promo code for your free pass. For everyone else interested in coming along, please book in via the ticket button below - would love to see you there!
Life Drawing with artist Agnes Jones & All The Young Nudes Life Drawing Club
