This weekend I went to see some art exhibitions in London with a friend. I haven’t done that kind of thing in such a long time (which is bad to admit, being creative and all!) but it was well worth the trek around east London.

One of the shows we went to see was by The Drawing Factory at Madame Lillie’s in Stoke Newington.

The Drawing Factory is made up from five uber talented illustrators/drawers named Uma Mahadeva,  Amy Green,  Colin Marsh,  Ambrosine Allen and Jonathan Gildersleeves. They all met whilst undertaking their MA in drawing at Wimbledon School of Art.

The group gathers once a month in sociable spaces and draws together. They often pass one-another’s drawings around and have someone else complete the work or make some arty changes to it. This collaborative way of working shows great diversity in each piece of work they do. As well as meeting once a month to draw together they often post one another pieces of work which can be anywhere from the size of a stamp to larger pieces. Each artist has a different working style and they experiment using different mediums such as collage, paint, pencil, charcoal and much more.

It was a great exhibition and very inspirational!  I loved the diversity of the works and I think that by letting someone else tinker with a piece you have produced can really add a whole new dimension! In fact, the show was so great that now me and my artists friend Helen Shaddock are going to try and send each other a piece of art work each month and see what we both come up with.

(Drawings by members of The Drawing Factory)