Drawing Masterclasses by Jessica Wall – Strange Doings in London

Jessica Wall is a Ballads and Song Research Volunteer taking part in the Strange Doings in London project run by Bloomsbury Festival and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Drawing Masterclasses by Jessica Wall

This summer, Bloomsbury Festival offered the fantastic opportunity to participate in a series of drawing masterclasses. The short course of four sessions would culminate in an outdoor exhibition at the festival this October. The lively group consisted of art students who were all volunteers from a variety of art schools in London with additional volunteers from the ballad research group continuing their multi-disciplinary exploration of the streets of Bloomsbury

Before the first session, participants were invited to spend time around Bloomsbury and notice what is distinctive, what is obvious and what is more subtle about it and what contrasts there were.

The sessions were a mixture of exercises, such as describing your journey to City Lit in one continuous line which got the hand and mind flowing, and more free form working on projects while being able to exchange ideas and knowledge. Everyone was very generous in sharing opinions and expertise. Drawing, especially buildings, has very technical elements and that was addressed in a rundown of ways to depict different textures through cross-hatching and other pen or pencil techniques.

The highlight of the course was a trip to the British Museum’s reading rooms where we got to look at materials brought from their vaults from the era we were concerned with (18th century, Hogarth times). Tucked away through the sweltering and heaving summer holiday crowds, these beautiful rooms are available to anyone who wishes to request a meeting with a resource of their choice from the museum’s extensive print and drawing archive. It’s an excellent resource.

The etchings and drawings chosen were pungent depictions of life on the city streets, a raucous cacophony of quotidian dramas, heaving cleavages and bare knuckle boxing. The street scenes are chaotic moments of larger untold stories resting in the pen strokes waiting for a viewer’s imagination to bring them to life again. What does that key that this young lady is spiriting out of the hands of her suitor open? Why is this man so implacable in the face of a woman beseechingly waving a handkerchief at him? Did those men running away from the giant snake they disturbed in the grassland of a far flung land escape it? What did the small gremlin like cat observing the opium smokers make of his lot?

We were invited to look at details and sketch them. Each of the chosen pieces were very detailed, so there was plenty to pick out and sketch depending on your interest and the allotted time went very quickly with so much to look at and consider.

Following the session, the group decamped to a nearby pub and exchanged sketches and impressions over nibbles. What details had caught their eye, which of the pieces had they been drawn to? I loved seeing other people’s work, each individual hand and eye taking different takes things from the same sources. I discovered in this course that sharing sketches can feel surprisingly exposing. Sharing ideas or work in progress feels like sharing a corner of your mind, at least to me. Creativity needs courage.

Towards the end of the gathering two of the youngest of the all-female group, comrades in pencil, sat casually sketching each other for fun, which made it feel like a salon for female creativity had broken out. Inspired, the group dispersed through the Bloomsbury summer streets, to meet again with their finished pieces on show.