Patreon Autumn Update

Hello lovely people,

We've had a whole host of new supporters this month, so if you've only just joined the Patreon, welcome! It means so much to you us all to have your support. I just wanted to update you on everything coming up on the Draw Patreon over autumn and give you a little glimpse into what we have planned for the new year, as well as providing a quick overview of how to make the most of everything on here. 

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Quick links

• Get feedback: if you'd like feedback on your drawings, post them up in our Slack board to get feedback from Lance! You can find how to do that HERE.  
• Search for reference photos: look back through our reference photos on our navigator HERE - just log in to Patreon, then use the site to search for the images you'd like to draw. We'll be updating and improving the Navigator soon, so if you can't find what you want you might also want to search for the photos using the tags in the Patreon feed. 
• Get help with your portrait drawing: take a look through Lance's tutorials on portait drawing HERE and come along to portait club for some practice! 
• Join our life drawing course: you'll find the link to the whole course HERE. Start with the introduction, then work through the course in order, or dip in and out as you need to. ALL supporters have access to the blog post version of the course, Life Drawing & Student tier supporters have access to all of the videos and practice photo-sets. 
• Get some quick drawing ideas: take a look HERE for some fun, playful drawing ideas to get you making marks if you're short on time. 
• Watch or listen to an interview: check out the ETC talks on our YouTube channel HERE 

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Future plans

• Navigator improvements: we're planning to improve the Draw Navigator to make it easier to find what you want, particular for anybody just starting out.
• New photo-sets: we'll be shooting our 'in context' photosets later this year - photos of models posing together and in settings, based on feedback from our supporters earlier this year. 
• Portrait Drawing course: In January 2023 I'll be starting a new, weekly portrait drawing course here on the Draw Patreon. Each week I'll be releasing a new video or blog post, with exercises to try out and feedback given via slack. The course will be available for everybody on the Portrait, Student or Life Drawing tiers and will be recorded so that you can re-visit it any time. 

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About us

We're a small arts organisation based in Brighton in the UK made up of a gaggle of freelance artist/tutors who run in-person drawing classes from our studio & online and a team of brilliant life models who pose for those sessions. Since we started in 2009 our aim has been to foster a supportive drawing, create affordable opportunities for people to learn to draw and to provide fairly paid, creative work for artists and models. We are a non-profit making organisation and this Patreon helps us to pay everybody who works here fairly and to keep making more resources for you to draw from. It has also helped us to expand our reach to include a wonderful bunch of artists and models from around the world - we remain hugely grateful to have the chance to connect with you all through a shared love to drawing!

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Where does all the money go?

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 team at Draw are paid freelancers. 

Alongside the usual pay and royalties distributed to our 50 artists & models we have used the money raised on the Patreon this summer to fund: 

• Community studio use - when we don't have life drawing sessions in the Draw studio, we let members of our extended community use it for their own projects. This summer our very own Jade Hylton directed a music video for the wonderful Kymara at the Draw studio, subsidised by your support. You can watch the video HERE!
• Model hardship support - at the start of the pandemic we started a hardship fund for models in finical difficulty. This summer that income has helped one model buy replacement lights for filming life classes at home, helped another model pay an unexpected energy bill and helped a third model pay for a train to attend their grandmother's funeral. While all the life models at Draw love their work it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain a creative career in England; through your generosity we are able to provide a little extra support for the members of our community on the lowest incomes. 
• Sick pay - two of our tutors were recently injured in accidents - Bella broke her collar bone & cheek life modelling and Shelley broke her knee while out walking her dog. The support you give us on here has allowed us to cover their replacements at Draw and pay them sick pay for any Draw work they have missed because of their injuries. It will also help us to support models through illness this autumn and winter, keeping everybody at the studio safe. 

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Ongoing support

Finally, a reminder that you can change your tier of support at any time to a more affordable tier - our discounted Student Tier is available to anybody in finical need who wants to access all of our resources but can't afford higher monthly costs. If you're feeling particular comfortable and generous, you're also welcome to increase the amount you pay for your tier each month too and if you're planning to support us for a whole year I'd recommend signing up as an annual supporter to save 10% on the monthly costs. Our aim is to strike a balance between making the Patreon affordable to everybody, while providing fair pay to the people who contribute to it. If you're unsure of whether you qualify for a discount, please do email me on info@draw-brighton.co.uk.

Thank you all for your support and I hope to see you at an online session soon! 

Jake