Friday Sketchbook Sessions

Learn tips and tricks to fuel your passion for sketching and to help keep a sketchbook as part of your creative life. Just like our long-running Thursday Sketchbook Sessions, but now on a Friday morning too!

In a relaxed and supportive environment, you’ll learn interesting ways to fill a sketchbook whilst honing your sketching skills and embracing the creative journey. Come join us in The Friday Sketchbook Sessions and let’s nurture a creative sketchbook habit together.

This ten-week course is suitable for anyone new to sketching, but also for those students looking to reignite their passion for sketchbook drawing, or simply for anyone wanting to explore the creative power that working in a sketchbook offers. Previous participants will be encouraged to expand their sketching practice with a series of weekly projects designed to enhance creativity and drawing skills, with guidance from the tutor.

With 25 hours of studio contact time we will be using such things as the built environment, elements of nature, and a menagerie of still-life objects as our reference. As well as doing plenty of sketching there will be many playful sketching exercises to enhance both your skill-set and enjoyment of this fabulously creative pastime. Mainly project led, we’ll think about layout and consider different compositions on each page to enhance your sense of design. We’ll also look at ways to distort the perspective of a scene so we can depict it in new and exciting ways. There will also be an opportunity to spend time in the Attenborough Arts Centre gallery spaces, where we’ll perhaps be inspired to fill a sketchbook page or two.

Amongst many other things we’ll show you how to make a start in a sketchbook, how to lose the fear of the blank page, and how to see things differently. A sketchbook is not only a portable place to store your work, but a place that can hold your creative endeavours, your learnings, your thoughts and your growth as well as your finished drawings. It’s a place for fun and a place where rules don’t matter.

About the tutor:

Working in a sketchbook is fundamental to tutor Austin Orwin’s artistic practice. It offers him a space to experiment and grow, a space to work out ideas, and a space to document his day-to-day thoughts and existence. His enjoyment grows with every sketch he makes, and he almost never leaves home without a sketchbook in one of his pockets. See more of Austin’s sketch work on Instagram @theleicestersketcher

Further information:

Sketchbook and all drawing materials are included in the course fee.

Participants must be aged 18+.

This 10-week course runs on Friday mornings, 10am – 12.30pm, starting on 16 January, ending on 27 March 2026.

No session on Friday 20 February 2026 (half term break).

If the course/workshop you’d like to book is sold out, we do operate a waiting list – simply contact our box office team on 0116 252 2455 / arts-centre@le.ac.uk and ask to be added to the waiting list. We’ll then contact you if a place becomes available, with absolutely no obligation to accept it if you’ve made other plans!

Please ensure that you agree to our updated Terms & Conditions before booking as courses/workshops are non-refundable in some circumstances.

We aim to make all our sessions as accessible as possible and carers/PAs are very welcome – just remember to book their free place when you book your session. If you’d like to talk to us in advance of booking or attending your sessions to discuss your access needs, our Box Office team is here to help! Email arts-centre@le.ac.uk, pop in or call 0116 252 2455, open 7 days a week.

We have four blue badge parking spaces outside Attenborough Arts Centre, plus double yellow line roadside parking very close to the building for blue badge holders for up to three hours if our parking spaces are occupied.

Free parking for all customers is available after 5pm on weekdays and all day at weekends in the University of Leicester car park next door to Attenborough Arts Centre on Lancaster Road. The closest public car park for parking at all other times is Victoria Park, 5-10 minutes walk from us (near De Montfort Hall).