Winter 2023 Update (Patreon)

Hello friends and patrons,

This is the first update to go to both our supporters and followers, so hello to ALL of you lovely lot! Whether we know you as an instagram handle, occasionally posting up pictures from sessions, or as long-standing drawing-friends of a decade or more, all of us from Draw wanted to say thank you for another year of support on here. The kind, creative community that you have built with us here is a constant source of inspiration and the drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures that you make in response to everything we put out makes the work we put in at this end feel so very worthwhile. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and if you don't we all hope that the next week is full of warmth, friendship and fun. 

If you have any questions over the next two weeks, do bear with us as we're a skeleton crew over Christmas. Sara and Megan are having a well deserved holiday next week and Emma & I are running the live sessions, so we won't be able to get back to you quite as quickly as normal.  If you're a follower rather than a paid supporter and you want a taster of everything here on the Patreon, you'll find the links to our free resources via the Draw Navigator right HERE (If you're interested in signing up to the paying tiers, the money goes directly to our models and into running the sessions and you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time)

Below you'll find some updates on what to expect at Draw in coming weeks, and in 2024!

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CHRISTMAS PROGRAMME

For those of you who might want some online company on Christmas Day, or need the excuse to nip off for an hour to do some drawing we have decided to go ahead with our full online programme without a break over the festive period! Here is what we have coming up next week, with our international times HERE.

Monday 25th Dec (Xmas day)
6-8pm (UK time) / Online portrait drawing (Recorded; all supporters)

Wednesday 27th Dec
10-11am (UK time) / Online life drawing (All supporters)
1-2pm (UK time) / Online life drawing (All supporters)
7-8:30pm (UK time) / Online life drawing (Recorded; all supporters)

Thursday 28th Dec
7-8pm (UK time) / Online portrait club (All supporters)

Mon 1st Jan (New Years day)
6-8pm / Online portrait drawing (Recorded; Portait, Student & Life Tiers)

As always you can check out the Draw website for the full programme HERE. If you're looking for drawing ideas over the holidays, take a look at our 2021 Christmas drawing prompts HERE.

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2024 PLANS

In order to fit in better with Patreon's new look and layout we've changed our navigation a little, putting all of our resources into 'Collections'. You can still go to the Draw Navigator to find everything you want, but you might notice that it now points you back to the related collections. If there's ever anything you can't find, just pop us a message on here and me, Sara or Megan will help you find it! Here are some of our 2024 plans: 

• Photosets - we'll be releasing more seasonally themed photosets alongside our usual offering of life and portrait poses. In the spring we'll be taking portrait photos of older models and in the summer we'll be shooting a big domestic photo series of group poses for release in the autumn.
• Feedback & community - with so many online platforms it is hard to know how to properly connect with you all as a community without overwhelming you with new platforms all the time! We're still planning to launch a Discord Chanel for drawing feedback, but we'll be asking your views first.
• The Portait Drawing course - the Portrait Course is the one place I have really fallen down this year - the amount of time required for recording the course combined with repeated illness on the team and the pressures of our expanding audience have meant that we haven't been able to deliver the course on time. We've taken on additional staff to manage the extra work load and we'll be able to start delivering the course monthly from the new year - in the meantime I sincerely apologise for everybody who has had to wait for the series to be released. 

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2023 IMPROVEMENTS

In the autumn we released our first Draw brochure, listing our full programme of online and in-person sessions up until May 2024, including in-person courses with the renowned artists and tutor Dr. Sarah Simblet and Scarlett's popular online printmaking courses. The lovely Jessica Sharville made brand new illustrations for the brochure (I interviewed Jess about making them HERE), and it's well worth taking a look through if you'd like a better idea of what we have coming up this year and what we do here at Draw - digital versions of the brochure are attached to this post and anybody in Brighton can pick up physical copies at the studio. Here are some of the other additions we made to the benefits on the Draw Patreon, without adding any extra cost to any of the tiers:

• We added (the start of) a portrait drawing course to the Portrait, Life & Student tiers, with more coming soon. 
• We also added 30 minutes to the 3rd Wednesday life class and made it a recorded session, with 53 recordings now in the archive from the year.
• We added over 3000 new reference photos to our library, spread across all of our tiers.
• We increased the resolution of our live streamed & recorded sessions (that was pricey, but worth it we hope!). 

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WHERE DOES ALL THE MONEY GO?

We are a non-profit making organisation and all of the money we make here is re-invested into our community of models, artists and tutors. I volunteer for Draw three days a week (my income comes from writing instructional drawing books and teaching for galleries) while all of the rest of the team at Draw are paid freelancers. 25% of our Patreon income is paid out in royalties each month to our 55 core models, 60% of the Patreon income goes into running our online sessions & commissioning new photosets and 10% goes into subsidising our in-person classes. We’ve used the remaining income this autumn & winter to fund:

• Model hardship fund – as our freelancers become stretched between stagnant pay at other organisations and increasing costs we’ve been handing out support grants to cover unexpected moving costs, vets bills and funding investments in new work equipment.
• Sick pay – Patreon allows us to pay sick pay to models and tutors at Draw for in-person and online classes, helping to set a more compassionate precedent for freelancers and ensure that all of our crew have time to recover when they’re ill.
• Sponsorship – we’ve been able to continue to sponsor other groups and initiatives aimed at increasing diversity in life modelling and drawing communities, as well as supporting access for people with learning difficulties through local charities in Brighton
• Portrait club – the Patreon funds our free in-person portrait drawing sessions in Brighton, offering an opportunity for people to draw for free in a welcoming environment.

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That's it for now! Thank you for all of your support helping us to run classes this year, have a wonderful end to 2023 and I'll look forward to seeing you all online soon.

Warmest wishes,

Jake