Here are just some of the drawings by Kathy Sawyer from the Athens drawing trip. We were blessed with fantastic weather on our first visit to this ancient city and are thinking of returning next year. Loving the confident line in these and the atmospheric quality of the 2 drawings on brown paper. What would we do without a white Posca! 😀

Here are a selection of wonderful street photos of locals in Istanbul by Ellen Lawes taken on our trip last May. 

Just back from Krakow last week. We were blessed with fantastic weather and a lovely group including photographer Sharon Cooper. Sharon is a professional photographer who joined us with her daughter Velvet, one of my ex-students from Norwich University of the Arts.

Here are just some of Sharon's photos documenting the trip. 
You can see more of Sharon's work her website https://sharoncooper.co.uk/

We've been listening to the feedback about our destinations and will definitely be keeping Krakow, along with Istanbul on our list for next year. 

I've started working on a book about drawing. It's more about ways of approaching the task of drawing and ways of thinking about drawing than a 'how to do it' book. I'm going to start to post parts of what I'm putting together to get some feedback from an audience. I want it to be a bit confrontational and a little bit funny too, if I can make that work. We'll see. Meanwhile here's a manifesto to start with!

The Manifesto (first draft)

We, the undersigned, are artists, teachers and designers who have been raised in a world in which the process of drawing has been presented as something that is difficult and mysterious.

Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief, the market rewards it, a tide of media and publications reinforce it.

The media is saturated with commercial messages in the form of social media marketing campaigns, books, magazines, educational tools that endorse the view that drawing is hard, that drawing is a highly specialised skill, that drawing takes a long time to learn.

It is a harmful code of public discourse that promotes the idea that we are not able to draw properly and then attempts to sell you a product or technique that has the answers you've been wishing for.

But there are methods more worthy of our time and effort.

We propose a reversal of prioritities in the approach to learning to draw. Away from fake formulae and the 'tricky' towards a more expressive and personal interpretation of the world and our experience. A shift away from copying from photos, a shift away from ’techniques’ that will produce ‘realistic’ results. An active engagement with the real world and real experience. To eradicate sophist ideas that propose, for example, that we need to draw with a differnt side of the brain! ​Ha!

So what is to be done? How do we re-connect with our ability to draw and draw on our creative potential? Read on…

Here are some beautiful drawings by Hayley from the recent trip to Istanbul. I had the pleasure of teaching Hayley at University more than 30 years ago and it was great to catch up again after such a long time. 

For a teacher it's great to see someone who is still actively creating and developing a very accomplished portfolio of work. Check out some of Hayley's other working this recent article. https://pukaarmagazine.com/an-arty-pilgrimage/

Or you can follow her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hayleyfernfineart/

Istanbul Drawing Escape May 2024


The city of Istanbul was the destination of choice for my first Drawing Escape.  I was drawn by the prospect of a unique experience with a group of people, who whilst strangers at the outset, would come with a similar mindset to my own and a desire to grow and improve their drawing skills, but from varying starting points.  Within the group we had several professional artists, a professional photographer, a designer and a few starting out in drawing completely from scratch.  In my own case, I approached this trip as a professionally trained, but very much lapsed creative, in search of a supportive environment to re-boot my overall creativity.
I knew that I wanted to take advantage of the rich and ancient heritage of Istanbul, seat of the Ottoman Empire for more than 400 years, and the Byzantine Empire before that.  On this trip we were surrounded by the stunning architecture of ubiquitous mosques whose size and scale must be seen to be believed, chief of which is the Blue Mosque; the mazes of undulating cobbled streets lined with terraced half-wooden Ottoman overhanging houses on either side; partial remains of ancient monuments; fascinating local shops; Grand Bazaar and the many Turkish restaurants and cafés.  The highlight for me, was a visit to the centuries old Topkapi Palace, seat of power for successive Ottoman Sultans.  I was struck by the sheer scale of the rooms, and in particular, the geometric skylight designs that filter natural light on to the walls of each chamber, decorated everywhere with traditional Iznic tiling in characteristic blue, white and brown.  We sat in the gardens to draw and eat lunch that day.
We stayed in a very friendly mid-range hotel, where the staff were helpful, and the generous breakfast helped to set us up for the day.  We walked long distances, allowing us to soak up the atmosphere and observe people and street architecture – plenty of insta-worthy opportunities as well as time to draw for a substantial amount of time.  Daily group tutorial sessions are a fundamental part of the experience, supportive, constructive advice coming from all members of the group, in addition to Martyn’s critiques.  Everyone in the group learned through mutual observation of drawing in progress, techniques and personalised approaches to materials used.  This is extremely useful to anyone interested in drawing in the field, from life.  I believe that everyone who took part, felt that by the end of the trip, we had all enhanced our creative practice in some way, through a unique, immersive and stimulating location along with skilful tuition and guidance.
Next up for me – the Spain trip!


Rachel Brooke
12.6.24
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I'm back from Australia so here is some news about our plans for 2024. 

We've made some changes to our proposed itinerary. We haven't had enough interest for the Tallinn and Gdansk trips so we've taken those off the schedule for this this year. 

The Istanbul trip is now fully booked and the Krakow trip will definitely run in September. We have also had sufficient interest in the secret destination , now planned for late September,

Spain is looking promising and we just need 2 more to sign up for Bali to make it viable. If you're reading this and are interested in joining us this year please let me know as soon as possible. It's going to be a very exciting year!