During a year of drawing with Royal Drawing School, I discover the new-old medium of silverpoint, and intend to follow this line for a while….
Making a shadow glow
I still don’t quite understand, if you’ll excuse the pun, why I’m drawn to silverpoint.
What really happened was, one of my tutors, Sharon, saw my frustration with charcoal, and suggested I try something else, a medium impossible to darken by force like a 2F graphite pencil or even silverpoint. With a bit of silver wire inserted in a clutch pencil, it was obvious: instead of always trying so hard, why don’t I try softer?
With silverpoint, one needs a light touch and an abundance of patience. I also quite enjoy the technical challenges that can be mastered, from the tightly detailed process of preparing the surface to the absolute commitment needed to any particular mark. Even mistakes have to stay put and must become part of the final work – like time, there is no erasing or going back. From step one, there must be precision and a certain amount of control in my determination.
With silverpoint though, control is a fantasy because I have none over what the final drawing will look like or how it will be perceived in a decade or even a day, because once the drawing has been out in the world it can completely change, say, due to the environment it’s in or the quality of light around it. And silverpoint drawings are notoriously difficult to photograph, due to the intrinsic nature of the metal that reflects any attempt to truly see it.
All the same, there’s something magical about a drawing like this, positively luminous even in its darkest shade… and I can’t think of any other drawing medium that can make a shadow or a memory glow in a silver light…
“Drawing Beyond” an exhibition of drawing from Drawing Study 23
The Royal Drawing School’s Online Drawing Development Year 2023 presents: Drawing Beyond, a special exhibition showcasing works on paper by 28 students who have graduated from the course in 2023.
The exhibition which takes place from 6th – 10th of March 2024 will include works on
paper, sculpture and animation created during the academic year and beyond.
The 28 exhibiting artists, who after forming a close creative affinity over the year, have gone on to form the artist collective Drawing Studio 23, hail from across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Czech Republic and United States, bridging different generations and backgrounds.
Arriving to the course with a melting pot of different influences, ideas and styles the artists were united over the course of the year through the prism of drawing. After 12 months of intensive observation, rummaging through memory and imagination, disrupting and reevaluating the meaning and power of line, mark-making and form the artists have created a vast body of work. Through reappraising their own process of looking, each artist has developed individual works that have been curated for the end of year exhibition by their Royal Drawing School tutors and fellow alumni.
The Online Drawing Development Year programme is in its third year, having welcomed students for the first time in 2021 and allows for a diverse array of artists to learn and collaborate with each other from all four corners of the globe.
The Royal Drawing School was founded in 2000 by HM King Charles III and artist Catherine Goodman, and is located in Shoreditch, London.
The Drawing Beyond selling exhibition will be on display at
RDS Notting Dale Campus
Breaker’s Gallery
1 Nicholas Road
North Kensington
London W11 4AN
Open hours
Wednesday 6th March to Sunday 10th of March 2024 — 11am – 6pm daily
Private View:
Thursday 7th March 2024 — 6 – 8pm
RSVP: drawingstudio23@gmail.com
Drawing Beyond is in partnership with
Related links/info
- Learn more about the artists of Drawing Studio 23
- Find out Royal Drawing School’s Online Drawing Development Year
- See more info about the Young Artists programmes at Royal Drawing School
- Draw Life. Learn to See Differently with The Royal Drawing School
