Thanks to all that came to draw at the V&A last Saturday. It was a brilliant day and we had our best turn-out yet with over 20 participants. It was great to see our regulars again and to have  the opportunity to meet new creative people.

Next one will be in St Albans in April. Will have a definite date in the next few days. Email us please if you'd like to join us. 

The video from the Bali trip is now on-line and can be found here. We've had emails and a lot of questions about when we will do the next one, so we're thinking either November this year or January 2024. Let us know if you would like to join us asap please.

We still have 3 places left for the Istanbul trip in May and the Krakow trip in June. Spain is on the list again for September but please be quick.. again, only 3 places left. 

Thanks to those who came to Bali and helped make it such an awesome adventure and thanks to those who've re-booked to come again next time. Terima kasih banyak.

And finally, if you have an idea for a new drawing destination please get in touch and we'll see if we can make it happen. Go well!

Thanks once more to those of you who could join us for the drawing day in St Albans last Saturday. Here are a few photos from the day.. hope to see you all at the next on on the 4th February in London! 

Here are some new drawings that I've been making using Procreate on the iPad. Enjoying the challenge of new tech. Looking at the relationship between my recent pattern drawings and Australian First Nation Art, inspired by their relationship and connection with landscape and use of pattern.

Travel, Draw, Stitch, Repeat
Whenever I travel to somewhere new I always reach for a map - sometimes several. I love maps – I love the way they impose order on a chaotic world. I love the stories that maps tell of the places and people they describe. And most of all, I love their intrinsic beauty. Colour harmonies, line, tone, texture and pattern are balanced against graphics, letters and symbolic meaning.
For all my love of maps, they have never featured in my work. My drawings and stitched pieces often reflect the places I’ve visited; occasional landscapes but mostly architecture. That was until my most recent trip with Martyn and Drawing Escapes. Eight days, travelling through Estonia and Latvia seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine cartography with stitched textiles. 
I started my first piece weeks before we left for the Baltic. I’d visited Riga on a previous trip and so armed with a tatty tourist map, my sketchbook and photos from the 2017 trip, I set to work. 

​To be honest, this first piece was a struggle – overly complex, fiddly and heavily influenced by the illustrated tourists maps I’d seen. 
I said at the beginning that, for me, maps bring order to a chaotic world; they tell a story and are beautiful. If you doubt this check out Piet Mondrian’s ‘New York Boogie Woogie’. Using nothing more than rectangles and four colours, Mondrian not only manages to show the basic layout of some small part of Manhattan but also expresses the excitement and vibrancy of New York City. My first Riga map, however, lacked order, and if it told a story, it was one of the tourist traps and stag weekends. This wasn’t my Riga – it was someone else’s.

Firstly we have the London drawing day at St Katherine Docks on the 27th August. We still have some places so let us know if you'd like to come along. It's free, and a great chance to meet the team.

The Bali trip is good to go. All flights and hotels are booked and we've managed to keep the cost down, even in the face of soaring prices for air travel and local transport. We're flying with Malaysia Airlines on a single ticket to ensure a reliable service with a trusted carrier. The food is great too! We're staying in 3 different locations to benefit from the diversity of culture and landscape that Bali has to offer.

The Spain trip is coming up in less than a month and is fully booked. Drawing in Spain was where it all started and is still our most popular destination. 

We now have dates and have had our first bookings for the Istanbul trip. We'll be travelling in the 3rd week of May so the weather should be perfect for us. This is our first visit to Turkey for a drawing trip and we're so excited to show you around.

Dates for Krakow will be coming soon and the next Spain trip. Let us know if you would like to join us, or if you have an idea for a destination and you have a few friends who're interested too, then get in touch and we'll put a customised trip together for you. Or if you want to join our mailing list please get in touch.  Hope to see you in 2023!