Update & Questionnaire (Patreon)

Hi everybody, 

It's been a while since I've posted an update, so I just wanted to pop you all a message to let you know what is happening here at Draw. If you're new to the Patreon - welcome! It's been so exciting to see the community here growing increasingly international over the last year and I really feel very lucky to be connected up with you all through the magic of drawing. To summarise our big news this month - we're planning new photosets for year ahead, we've reopened drop-in sessions at our Brighton studio and we're hoping to expand the online programme in the coming months. Read on for more details... 

Photo-sets

We're planning some new photoshoots with our regular life models and some new faces - we'd really like to know what you'd like to see more of, so if you'd like to have your say on what reference images we shoot next for the Patreon, just fill in this survey HERE.

In-Person Live Programme

Although half our programme is now online, it has always been important for us to have a physical base -  I live in North Wales and our online models are scattered around the world but the Draw studio in Brighton remains the beating heart of the operation.  All of the Patreon supporters who come to in-person sessions get a discount of around 20% at the classes and get exclusive access of our unlimited life drawing passes and as we've just reopened our drop-in sessions in Brighton, it's a great time to visit! Here's what we're running at the moment - the price below includes the Patreon discount and you can see the full programme HERE. 

Tuesdays
7-9pm / In-Person Mixed Pose Life Drawing / £9

Wednesdays
7-9pm / In-Person Mixed Pose Life Drawing / £9

Thursdays
1-3pm / In-Person Mixed Pose Life Drawing / £9
7-9pm / In-Person Mixed Pose Life Drawing / £9

Fridays
1-3pm / In-Person Short Pose Life Drawing (rebooking required) / £9
4-6pm / In-Person Long Pose Life Drawing (rebooking required) / £9

A 1-month drawing pass cost £75 and gives you access to unlimited life class for a month. 

Aspirations

We have great plans for the future! Alongside our usual weekly photo-sets and online sessions, here are some things we have in the pipeline. Thank you to everybody who has been sharing details of the Draw Patreon on their social media - it really helps us hit our goals to run more sessions on here.

• In the next month we'll be launching our new feedback platform on Slack - a place for you to post work to get direct input from Draw tutors. This has been a long time coming, so thanks for your patience.
• In the autumn this year we'll launch my new portrait drawing course here on the Patreon - it will have a similar format to Lance's life drawing course and will be released weekly for everybody on the Student, Life Drawing and Portrait tiers, with extra blogs for people on the supporter tier.
• As soon as we reach £6150 income per month on the Patreon we'll launch a new monthly themed life drawing session - it will be a monthly event (funds permitting) and will be recorded for rewatching on zoom. 
• As soon as we reach £6400 income per month on the Patreon we'll launch a new monthly ETC talk. 

Where does all the money go?

Draw is a social enterprise and all of the money we make here is re-invested into our community of models, artists and tutors. All of the team at Draw are paid freelancers and I'm a volunteer  (my income comes from writing instructional drawing books). 25% of our Patreon income is paid monthly to the 40 models who have posed for our refernce photos, 40% is paid to the models and tutors who model for us each month and produce our blogs and videos, 15% goes into subsidising our in-person sessions and the rest goes into paying models for new photoshoots and covering our other running costs. This month you've also helped to pay for:

• The Draw Studio - With the Patreon helping to subsidise our studio costs we are able to offer it to groups who can't afford to rent a space. This month we helped Jade Hylton get her Drink & Create sessions running again and offered the studio for Kymara to film a music video! 
• Making videos more accessible - Your monthly support is helping us to make all of our tutorial and demo videos more accessible. Every week Megan adds closed captions to more of our back catalogue of talks and videos, funded by your support.
• New kit for online models - We have a hardship fund for models in difficulty - this month we helped one freelance model cover their food costs when the lost a whole week of work to illness and we  helped two models fix damaged lighting rigs for their online modelling.

Annual support

Now that we know we'll be running online sessions permanently we've added the option to pay an annual, rather than a monthly subscription. If you knew you were going to be sticking around here for a whole year you can save 10% by paying for that year in advance. 

• Hover over your profile icon in the top-right corner and select Manage Memberships
• From your Active Memberships page, click Edit next to Draw Brighton
• Select the Annual option on the checkout page
• Click the Update button (you’ll be charged up-front for the discounted price)

Our aim is always to strike a balance between making the Patreon affordable to everybody, while providing fair pay to the people who contribute to it. If you ever can't afford to continue coming to online or in-person session, just email me on info@draw-brighton.co.uk and we'll sort something out. 

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Hope to see you at online and in-person sessions soon,

Jake