Charcoal drawing workshop led by artist Jules Bradbury, inspired by Frank Auerbach's 'Charcoal Heads', in which erasure is treated as a drawing technique.
Jules Bradbury is leading a charcoal drawing workshop called Erasure: Drawing Out Of Darkness at Summerhall on Sunday 1 November, from 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm. It's part of the venue's Creative Learning programme, a series of drawing workshops run throughout the year, and this one is pitched as a relaxed Sunday afternoon for anyone who wants to pick up charcoal, regardless of experience. It's open to over-18s, and all materials are provided on the day.
The session takes its lead from Frank Auerbach's Charcoal Heads, and you'll be working with charcoal in almost every form — block, stick, pencil and powder — to let forms emerge out of the darkness. Following Auerbach's own approach, you'll build up your drawing and then dismantle it, treating erasure itself as a drawing technique and learning how to be selective with your mark-making. It's as much about what you take away as what you put down.
Jules Bradbury is a Scottish visual artist and an experienced educator who teaches drawing and low-tech printmaking to art and design students at Heriot-Watt University, alongside running public workshops. Her own body of work, The Skin, which centres on haptic drawing, will be on exhibition at Summerhall from 23 January to 21 March 2027, so this is a good chance to get a feel for her approach before the show opens.
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It runs in the Histology Lab on the first floor of Summerhall Arts (1 Summerhall, Edinburgh South EH9 1PL), and you're asked to meet in the reception first. An apron or an old shirt is recommended, and a folder is useful for taking your work home. Tickets are £36.25, with a reduced price of £29.25 for those on a low income or unemployed.
