Anatomy week: exploring the human form

Join us for an intensive week-long practical and theoretical course dedicated to the art of anatomical drawing.

This five-day practical course led by Adele Wagstaff, with supplementary lectures from leading art-world and medical experts, will give you the chance to examine every layer of the human anatomy; from the skeletal system to the musculature that provides us with movement and life.

Working with professional life models, the course will take you through the stages of weighting the body to observing movements and facial anatomy, as well as producing emotion and life to your artwork. By studying in a fully-equipped art studio, you will be able to understand how artists’ materials such as chalk, pastel and ink can be manipulated to mimic the appearance of the body, with techniques both traditional and modern.

Great artists of the past and present, from Leonardo da Vinci to Stephen Farthing RA, have studied the body through in-depth knowledge of anatomy. At the end of this course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the body’s interior, which will, in turn, strengthen the skills needed for successful life drawing and portraiture.

This course takes place in the RA Schools’ historic Life Room and will include off-site visits. The Life Room was particularly designed for the Royal Academy to aid the study of life drawing, which has been practised in this room by generations of Royal Academy artists and Academicians.

Adele Wagstaff has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the BP Portrait Award, and her work has been exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery, Royal West of England Academy and the Canadian Portrait Academy. Following on from her graduation from the Slade School of Art, where she focused on working from the nude in sustained poses, her practice continues to look at the human figure and still life.

Minimum age 18. If you have any accessibility needs, please contact [email protected]