Life drawing in the Life Room, RA Schools

Workshop

#LifeDrawingLive with Jonathan Yeo

A live-streamed class to join from home

Thursday 25 January 2018 7.30 - 9pm

Online

Free

From Life

Rewatch our first ever live-streamed life class, led by the renowned portraitist Jonathan Yeo, and become part of a 250-year tradition of life drawing at the Royal Academy.

In 2018, we celebrated our innovative exhibition project, From Life, with a live-streamed life drawing class in the historic RA Schools Life Room. Artist Jonathan Yeo led the class, and we broadcast the session across our social media platforms and asked you to get involved, following along at home and sharing your progress.

Although the livestream has now ended, you can still catch up with #LifeDrawingLive online, following the class just as it happened on the night.

Catch up on our first #LifeDrawingLive class, and replay the 2019 follow-up class, #LifeDrawingLive: the anatomy class.

Free

From Life

Go to the exhibition

From Life: special exhibition project

Looking to the past, present and future of one of the cornerstones of artistic process, this exhibition asks what it means to make art from life, and how the practice is evolving as technology opens up new ways of making and seeing.

Drawing from casts and life models was long considered essential training for any aspiring artist, and was once a staple of the Royal Academy’s own art school. Now, on the cusp of the RA’s 250th anniversary, this special exhibition project takes an inquisitive look at the tradition and its ongoing relationship with artists today.

Find out more

From antique to life: drawing and painting in the historic art school

Courses and classes at the RA

The RA’s extensive academic programme invites you to develop your skills and expand your knowledge of the practice of art, its history and its theory. Our courses and classes are available for all levels, whether you have a general enthusiasm or a long-standing personal and professional interest. Upcoming life-drawing courses include Drawing: the essentials, Anatomical drawing and In the school of genius: an introduction to historical life drawing approaches.

Find out more

About the space

The Life Room

The class is set in the Academy’s historic Life Room, nestled deep in the heart of the contemporary RA Schools: the UK’s longest surviving art school and first Academy. This unique and significant setting was designed in the 1860s, when the galleries and schools were first constructed at Burlington House, as purpose built studios to encourage the study of the human form in art.

The semi-circular seating arrangement is based on an ancient design and can trace its British history all the way back to the 1730s and Hogarth’s Academy in St Martin’s Lane. The bespoke light systems and curtain drapes are also of ancient design and are used (then as now) to provide directional light and tonal backdrops to aid the delineation of the figure’s musculature – significantly enhancing the use and study of anatomical and expressive figure drawing.