Viva Brighton Issue #83 January 2020

MY SPACE
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Jake Spicer
Head tutor at Draw Brighton
We’ve been running life
drawing classes in this studio,
in New England House,
for about ten years. I started
running evening classes when
I moved to Brighton as a way
of meeting people and was
asked to put on a themed life
drawing event at Komedia
for the second White Night
festival. We expected 30 or 40
people but 750 turned up! So,
we set up this dedicated space
providing daily, affordable life
drawing classes for anyone
who wanted to come.
We offer an average of three
classes a day, seven days a
week. It’s mostly drop-in life
drawing sessions but we also
offer portrait painting and,
elsewhere in the building,
printmaking, as well as special
events, artists’ talks and the
year-long Draw Atelier course.
There’s room for 25 people
in the studio and we get a
real mixture of people in
each session: A Level and
university students, people
who want to take up drawing
as a hobby and lots of professional
artists and people working
in the creative industries.
It’s everyone in together.
Beginners sometimes feel
intimidated, but experienced
artists learn so much from
beginners because they see the
freshness of the new approach.
People are generally very
supportive of one another. It
was great to see our oldest
regular, aged 93, sharing tips
and advice with a 14-year-old
GCSE student.
People can turn up
with nothing as we have
everything here. There’s a
studio shop where you can buy
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