Expressive life drawing: observation and imagination
Art making summer school
15 July 2025 2 - 5pm16 July 2025 2 - 5pm17 July 2025 2 - 5pm18 July 2025 2 - 5pm19 July 2025 2 - 5pm
Dunard Fund Life Drawing Studio | Burlington House
£1,000. Includes all materials, light refreshments each day and a drinks reception.
Friends of the RA book first
Learn how to convey emotion and expression within your life drawing practice in this week long afternoon course.
Artists have used the human figure as a vehicle for self-expression and emotion throughout history; this remains central to the creative practice of notable contemporary artists including Jenny Saville RA, Dame Tracey Emin RA and Georg Baselitz Hon RA.
During this course you will use the principles of life drawing to create expressive depictions of the human figure. Over five afternoons artist Alan McGowan will guide you as you navigate using both observation and imagination to inform your drawings. Working with life models, you will be encouraged to question notions of mistakes, accuracy and finish. You will learn how to use gesture, repetition, distortion, and movement to go beyond purely literal depictions of the figure and towards expressions of the human experience.
Working from the Dunard Fund Life Drawing Studio in the heart of the RA Schools, you will follow in the footsteps of generations of artists. Your learning will be supported by access to our unique collection of anatomical studies, drawings, casts and écorché figures as well as From Observation to Abstraction: The Body in Art; an exhibition of works from our collection.
Alan McGowan is an expressive figure painter based in Edinburgh. His work has been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award, the Threadneedle Prize for Figurative Art, the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize, and the SKY Portrait Artist of the Year. His paintings of the figure are as much a celebration of the medium of oil painting as an exploration of the human form. Alan has taught for over twenty years at institutions such as The Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, Edinburgh College of Art, Bristol School of Drawing and Leith School of Art.
Please note, this course can be attended alongside Drawing with Anatomy, which will run from 10.00am – 1.00pm across the same dates. Bookers to both courses will receive a discount of £100 (applied at check-out).
Minimum age 18. If you have any access requirements that you’d like to discuss, please contact public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk.
If the event is sold out, please contact public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk to be added to the waiting list.
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