Slade Drawing 150
The Slade 150 Drawing book was launched with a print run of 150 copies on 7 December 2022. Conceived and written by Liz Rideal, designed by printmaker Lesley Sharpe, and including drawings from Slade staff members, the book marked the end of our 150th year of celebrations.
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UCL Art Library
Slade Press, December 2022, 132pp, full colour, edition of 150 nfs. Available to download from Slade and ArtUK websites.
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The publication is not on general sale but copies are available at the cost price of £25 to alumni and friends of the Slade. Public collections that contributed images such as The British Museum, The National Gallery, London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, will receive copies. The book will also be distributed to art schools and libraries in the UK, such as The V & A National Art Library, The Paul Mellon Library, UCL Special Collections and the British Library.
A pdf version is available online to support the drawing courses led by the Slade and for free public and student access online. Slade 150 Drawing book was created as a discussion document around the discipline of drawing today, as a support resource for students and as a springboard for the Slade Short Courses. The idea was to broaden the dialogue around drawing and celebrate the investigative essence of this traditional method of working. Basic drawing concepts have long been taught in art schools in the UK, and these are constantly adapted and evolved in tandem with changes in society and ongoing technological developments.
During the 2020 pandemic, it became necessary to modify and expand the Slade Short Courses on Drawing for online sessions. Consequently, we redesigned these for students working at home in isolation. We devised extra resources that took into consideration the lack of space, studio props, materials and the important spontaneous and informal discussions normal in a live studio teaching environment. The concepts underpinning the teaching needed even more careful consideration: the exercises and discussions were compressed into 20-minute support films, with PDFs and hyperlinks giving access to extra information and examples. Today we share our online courses with all who cannot travel to London to attend live teaching sessions.
Since the launch of our first online drawing course in 2021, there have been over 300 students attending worldwide, specifically from the UK, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chile, Australia, USA, and also participants from the Kakuma refugee coaching programme in Kenya and the Karmabank programme for refugee artists.