I Can’t Draw exhibition round up
The exhibition space glowing in the late summer sunshine.
From September 19th to 29th, Springbank Studio was transformed into a drawing extravaganza. I Can’t Draw was an interactive exhibition with drawing activities for all ages throughout the studio. Visitors were encouraged to be playful with their drawings by making giant drawing tools, drawing with the wrong hand, and being banned from looking at the paper while drawing. It was an opportunity to celebrate drawing in all forms, and we had an absolute ball!
For eight days, the studio was filled with experimental drawings, and people were rediscovering the joy of drawing. The show allowed us to connect to the local community and welcome you into our space. Whilst we can’t always have the doors open, we are so pleased that people are finding us during the windows that we are open.
The exhibition featured still-life drawings created during Zoom drawing sessions from May 2020 to today, made by artists and non-artists alike. This work deserved to be celebrated, so we created our mini RA summer show in Hither Green. At the beginning of the exhibition, we had 140 drawings on show, but thanks to contributions from the local community, we had over 200 drawings on show by the end of the two weeks.
A favourite drawing exercise in the exhibition was a whole wall of paper on which you were encouraged to create your own drawing tools from our trolley of stuff, from chopsticks to garden canes, crayons to charcoal, tape to elastic bands and string. We asked that visitors choose one thing from each section to create their tool and then encouraged some truly wild mark-making to happen.
This image was snapped after week one, and the image below is from the visitors in week two. One of the final visitors left us a message in the centre of the drawing, which perfectly sums up the energy of the show!
I CAN DRAW!
Here we have Jo Case showcasing her excellent multi-tasking skills - being a life model whilst also teaching the class!
On Saturday, the 21st, we welcomed artist Jo Case (Lost Cat Inc) to the studio to host an inaccurate drawing class. She led participants through lots of amazing drawing workshops with one simple rule: you had to work with your non-dominant hand. Our youngest participant was a four-month-old baby who did a wonderful job of life modelling in the still life/ life drawing set-up.
The exhibition also saw the launch of the first of our I Can’t Draw drink & draw sessions; we hosted a brilliant group for an evening of playful drawing in the studio. The session went so well that we’ve now released tickets for our October and November sessions which can be booked here.
We will now turn the studio back into a design studio for the next couple of months before we throw open the doors again for Lee Green Open Studios in November and our Christmas extravaganza in December.
Thank you to everyone who came and drew at the show. Your enthusiasm for the project was completely infectious, and has made us really excited for the future at Springbank Studio.