London Drawing at Tate Modern

2 pictures copywrite of London Drawing














What: Life drawing with a difference

Level: Accessible to beginners and artists alike

Where & when: Tate Modern galleries on Monday evenings from 18.45–20.45. 19th October- Monday 30th November

How much: £20 for one session

My friend Lucie and I spent Monday evening in the Warhol room at the Tate taking part in London Drawing's fresh take on the standard life drawing class.

Kicking off with juice and biscuits (a delight), we were taken into the Andy Warhol and then Jeff Koon rooms in which naked women with stars on their nipples were posing. Our two tutors Anne Noble-Partridge and David Price gave us shorts talks on the artists to get us into their mindsets and asked us to create something that played on those themes and captured the essence of whichever room we chose to create in. We were asked not to get hung up on trying to draw the model in front of us, but to embrace the materials they had provided us with (coloured paper, magazines etc) and perhaps focus on particular elements that drew our attention, or particular styles of representation such as repetition.

The 2 hours we had sped by in no time and if anything, they could do with making the course a little longer to include time to go round the galleries to inspire us out of our day-at-work-heads. Going round looking at everyone's wildly varied art at the end, it was clear that there was a whole range of different abilities and personalities - clearly we all got truly into the spirit of the class. Lucie went for sillhouettes and 3D, and now has it hung proudly on her wall. Mine is abandoned half fallen behind a radiator because it turned out a bit crap. But I had fun doing it!

We walked home with a girl we met at the class called Joanne - another lovely bonus of going to classes like this. She's a jewelry designer who was looking for fresh ideas. Here she is and what she had to say:

"Pop art isn't very me, but the tutor explained ways to make it work for you... I just did my thing with bolder colours and lines... I loved it"

And here's what Anne, one of the tutors, has to say about it:

Our goal:
London Drawing aims to radically reinvent the traditional concept ofdrawing from life through producing unique drawing workshops, which areengaging, inspiring and entirely relevant to contemporary practice.

What we want people to gain from our workshops:
We hope to encourage participants of all levels of ability to useunconventional materials and approaches to explore their own visuallanguage. We aim to provide a creative, fun environment where participantsare encouraged to 'think like an artist' in workshops which are arecompletely accessible - working on the premise that no skills or drawing experience are needed to make strong and exciting work.

To book classes in the future, follow this link: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/coursesworkshops/19597.htm

To check out the other great looking classes London drawing offer, follow this:

http://www.londondrawing.com/

Recipease, Clapham Junction

What: Learn how to cook even better
Where: Recipease, 48 - 50 St. Johns Road, Clapham Junction, Battersea, SW11 1PR

How much: Varies depending on whether you do a class or make a pizza (2 pizzas for £10)

My boyfriend James and I are listening to Tina Turner and tucking into the delicious pizzas we made for lunch at Jamie Oliver's latest retail venture Recipease in Clapham Junction. This isn't just a shop for over priced marmalade, it's also a place to make good food using great fresh ingredients - and you don't have to clean up afterwards!

There was a big group making fresh ravioli while we were there

for which they had to pay £20 each to learn how to make (they

were all also happily sipping on free wine). We were just nipping in to buy some lunch but were told that you don't have to book to make pizzas from scratch

They kit you out in an apron and for £10 you are handed a bowl of dough and an essentially endless supply of chunks of mozarella, salami, jars of oily anchovies and sundried tomatoes, you name the topping, and they have it, nicely chopped up and in little individual bowls like TV chefs always have.

The staff are inordinately helpful and nice and don't even give you disapproving looks when you try and use every single topping available. The uncooked beautys get put into take away pizza boxes and then you take it home to cook. James is now eating a meaty feast and I am eating a 14 topping taste sensation.

Let Rip at Sir John Soane's Museum

Yesterday I made one of my regular pilgrimmages to what is possibly my favourite place in London - Sir John Soane's Museum. It's filled with objects of curiosity and reminds me of my Grandad. This time I went with a purpose beyond just wandering around the place imagining it was my house. I went and took part in a free workshop called 'Let Rip', held as part of the Big Draw event.

We made a motley crew of 11 of all different nationalities, ages, and levels of drawing ability (i.e. from 'I can't draw really' to 'I'm an artist and lecture in art college'). We first spent an hour drawing an object that caught our fancy from inside the museum with the condition being we had to choose something with lots of light and dark contrasts within it. Armed with lots of B pencils we were encouraged to keep shading and shading till our drawings near sprung out of the paper.

Back in the workshop our teacher laid out vast quantities of painted paper and this we used to make collages based on our drawings. A lovely silence descended on the room for the next few hours as we busily concentrated on ripping up bits of coloured paper and gluing them into position carefully. Sticky fingers and cups of tea and contented smiles on everyones faces.

The collages started off looking horrible but after much encouragement and comments like 'it's coming together' from our teacher, they really did start to take shape and by 4pm we all had two pictures, one drawn and one stuck together, that we were rather proud of.

Sir John Soane's museum does other events for adults and for kids and families, you can find details of them here: http://www.soaneeducation.org.uk/home/index.cfm?CFID=1739361&CFTOKEN=51516954

P.S. A great British artist called Mary Delany pioneered this process and created pictures of flowers that appeared to be paintings unless you looked very closely. See her work at the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/m/mary_delany,_physalis,_winter.aspx