A Guide to Drawing is Free Booklets on Patreon
A contents guide for all the PDF booklets with prompts and inspiration for drawing that I have written for my Patreon subscribers.
Updated: August 2026
I created a Patreon︎︎︎ in 2022, and the support from participants has enabled a turning point in my career. I am deeply grateful for it.This page is a contents guide to all the drawing booklets I've written for my Patreon subscribers so far. Use the buttons to browse by theme.
50 booklets
| Booklet | Cover | Description | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Anatomy of a Flower (Part One) July 2022 Patreon︎︎︎ — Anatomy of a Flower (Part One) | We will look at a chosen flower as a ‘body’. Plants, trees, flowers are not objects but living, breathing subjects with a life cycle. | ||
| #2 Looking for Shade August 2022 Patreon︎︎︎ — Looking for Shade | It is the month of August and I am writing to you from Paris where it is hot. Depending on where you are in the world, you may not be ‘Searching for Shade’, but I hope to encourage different ways of looking at, drawing and making images of the leaves and foliage that surround and shelter you. | ||
| #3 Three Grasses September 2022 Patreon︎︎︎ — Three Grasses | I have titled this booklet, ‘Three Grasses’ inspired by an exercise in the book, ‘Inspiration for Embroidery’ by Constance Howard that I found in the library of Antioch College in Ohio this summer. She asks that the reader find different flowering grasses to study: to look closely at them and to appreciate their distinct design… and then to find ways – through drawing – to translate the character of each plant into embroidered stitches. | ||
| #4 Texture into Colour October 2022 Patreon︎︎︎ — Texture into Colour | The exercises in this booklet are an invitation to dare, to exclaim in colour, to make images that shout out the experience of looking at nature and her infinite pigments. | ||
| #5 Leaves and Hands November 2022 Patreon︎︎︎ — Leaves and Hands | The connection between the leaf forms and the human hand is perhaps an obvious one: the veins, the ‘fingers’, a splayed hand / an open leaf, a tight fist / a dried knot of one. | ||
| #6 Entre Chien et Loup December 2022 Patreon︎︎︎ — Entre Chien et Loup | I am using the French expression for dusk or twilight, ‘Entre Chien et Loup’ which means ‘Between the Dog and the Wolf’ as the title for the booklet as it conjures a distinct image of this witching hour where day becomes night. | ||
| #7 Looking Down / Looking Up January 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Looking Down / Looking Up | I want us to concentrate on drawing what is right in front of us (when we aim our eyes down), to direct our attention to where we are and where we are rooted whether we like it or not. But also, to (look up) to what is above us – tree branches, swiveling cranes, the sky, etc. Looking up is a positive act. | ||
| #8 Spaces (Part One) February 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Spaces (Part One) | The prompts in this booklet called, ‘Spaces, Part 1’ are directly inspired by a recent exhibition of Sam Szafran’s work that I saw in Paris at the Orangerie called ‘Obsessions d’un peintre’. I am keen to work on the following parts (Part 2, Part 3…) as the challenge of learning about drawing space is never-ending. | ||
| #9 Buds and Blooms in Ink March 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Buds and Blooms in Ink | This booklet is inspired by a series of recent drawings my Mum has been making in her studio in South-West France of the shoots and blooms bursting from seeds she planted with my son in the Autumn. | ||
| #10 The Gardens Inside of Us April 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — The Gardens Inside of Us | I want to explore how our drawings can be not just affected by the physical sensations of our body, but by the emotions, dreams and desires that pass through it. | ||
| #11 Seeds May 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Seeds | A seed is all dense potential. What lays latent inside a shell unfolds once the seed is planted in the earth, watered and placed in sunlight. I am interested in how we grow a drawing like a seed. What are the right conditions for us to draw in (a very personal question)? | ||
| #12 Insects and Other Tiny Creatures June 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Insects and Other Tiny Creatures | This month, we move our magnifying lens from seeds to insects and other tiny creatures. It is uncanny – and often described by many participants in this Patreon community - that once the theme has been set and we are tuned into looking at a particular subject, we see it everywhere. | ||
| #13 Anatomy of a Flower (Part Two) July 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Anatomy of a Flower (Part Two) | So, what if we draw nature as if it were a human body? … making no distinction between the filaments of a flower and the life of our nerves, the structure of the plant and our own skeleton, the softness of our flesh and that of a petal. I believe it is a completely absorbing exercise to find out. | ||
| #14 Between Drawing and Writing August 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Between Drawing and Writing | The exercises here attempt to blur boundaries between drawing and writing and pose questions: when does a drawn line become a word? Is it possible to draw a language that you cannot speak? What does a written word bring to a drawn line? Is it possible to describe in words how you draw? | ||
| #15 Recipes September 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Recipes | This series of prompts are a celebration of the energy, delights and pleasures that are found in the kitchen. How food – the selection, preparation and eating of it - is a sensuous, essential part of our lives that seems to me, to naturally align with a practice of drawing. | ||
| #16 Clothes October 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Clothes | Clothes we have worn have the potential to hold memories of a time, place and emotion. Fabric has weight, smell, and texture – it is sensual. This booklet is a series of explorations through drawing that can only be a beginning, the subject is so vast and so rich to mine. | ||
| #17 Fall and Repair November 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — Fall and Repair | What can be learned from this release of energy, this release of a firm grip? How can we relax as we let our creative ‘failures’ play themselves out and crumble? What is the deeper meaning of the word “mend”, taking what is broken and deciding to put our energy into its repair? | ||
| #18 The Body and the Elements December 2023 Patreon︎︎︎ — The Body and the Elements | The text in this booklet is divided into four parts, with a drawing prompt related to each of the four elements: Water, Air, Fire and Earth. | ||
| #19 Flight January 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Flight | This collection of prompts is deliberately pared back, spare and concentrated — freedom of gesture, patient close looking, play and daring. What does it take to make a mark that flies? | ||
| #20 Bark and Branches February 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Bark and Branches | We will focus on the centering, calm, rootedness of trees, their bark and branches. I took time - as I am inviting you to – to go outside with my sketchbook and pencils, to sit amongst trees and to draw. It felt so good. | ||
| #21 Small Things March 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Small Things | The overriding motivation for this booklet is encouragement to take time with small things: to meditate on the tiniest elements that make up our lives and appreciate them. | ||
| #22 …and I Filled My Room with Flowers April 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — …and I Filled My Room with Flowers | My invitation this month is to ‘fill your room with flowers’, to turn your attention to colour, life, nature, not as a way of turning away or ignoring the terror of world events, but as a way of building resilience and hope. | ||
| #23 Cut-Out and Volume (Part One) May 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Cut-Out and Volume (Part One) | We will begin with an exercise inspired by Josef Albers and start to think about the physical nature of paper: its particular plasticity, strength and its sculptural potential. We will then work with paper, not just as a surface to make an illusion on, but to make images with. | ||
| #24 Sea Creatures and Underwater Worlds June 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Sea Creatures and Underwater Worlds | The sea is deep and to our naked eyes looking at the horizon: it is infinite. She is the symbol of the unconscious, continually washing up unpredictable things up to the shore if you are brave enough to explore. | ||
| #25 Field(s) July 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Field(s) | I started to imagine a field as a page; how drawings made on this field could mirror the growth, movement, harvest, life on this terrain. I also thought of the term ‘field-work’ – how as artists we could use this term for our research in the natural environment. | ||
| #26 Alternative Anatomy (Part One) August 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Alternative Anatomy (Part One) | What if we thought of drawing another’s body as if we were drawing our own? What happens when we invite how we feel and experience our own flesh, skeleton, nerves, emotions… into the life room? What if we reinvented the boundaries, texture and structure through intuition? | ||
| #27 Postcard September 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Postcard | A constraint can be liberating. This booklet explores what happens when we work postcard-size. How can we capture a slice of life small enough to send to a stranger, somewhere else in the world? | ||
| #28 Skies October 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Skies | The sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything. A month of drawing what is above us, including daily cloud studies, turbulent weather, and the wonder of the night sky. | ||
| #29 Leaves and Pattern November 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Leaves and Pattern | Leaves are falling in abundance in Paris now. This booklet works with a similar abundance of colour, line, shape and pattern, each one a building block to the next. | ||
| #30 Metamorphosis December 2024 Patreon︎︎︎ — Metamorphosis | Nature is in perpetual metamorphosis. This booklet asks how we might trust drawing to unravel possibilities, to guide us through one state and into another. | ||
| #31 My Still Life January 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — My Still Life | The objects that surround us at home can work as a distilled portrait of who we are. This booklet is an invitation to look at them that way — with intimacy, tenderness and quiet. | ||
| #32 Earth and Our Roots February 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Earth and Our Roots | Everything that we need as drawing artists to grow is right in front of us and right inside us. We just need to tend to it. A booklet that begins underground, with roots and damp soil. | ||
| #33 Hairlines: Nature, Decoration, Celebration March 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Hairlines: Nature, Decoration, Celebration | Hair grows willfully, expresses where we come from, and changes with who we are. This booklet finds drawing material in moss, braids, the backs of heads, and the lines that describe them. | ||
| #34 Birds (Part One): Identifying, Songs, Perching April 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Birds (Part One): Identifying, Songs, Perching | Drawing is our tool for learning, harnessing our often wayward attention, and enabling us to move more slowly and intentionally. A booklet for listening, identifying, and looking closely at the birds that share our world. | ||
| #35 Birds (Part Two): Movement, Plumage, Invention May 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Birds (Part Two): Movement, Plumage, Invention | Results came after many attempts — returning again and again to the same subject, moving through the frustration of the first tries. This booklet finds ways to activate lines at speed, and then follow where they lead. | ||
| #36 Cut Flowers June 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Cut Flowers | How might we distil the infinite variety of plants and flowers using just paper and a blade? Inspired by Mary Delany's extraordinary botanical paper-mosaicks, a booklet about drawing with scissors. | ||
| #37 Shadowy Trees July 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Shadowy Trees | How to draw the difference between a leaf and a shadow of a leaf? And would it matter if the information got mixed up? One careful drawing under the shade of a tree, and everything that grows from it. | ||
| #38 The Rehearsal: Music and Musicians August 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — The Rehearsal: Music and Musicians | I find music to be the art form with the most direct, immediate route into the deepest part of me. This booklet tries different ways of wrapping our lines with music, to see where it takes us. | ||
| #39 Free Expression: Inspired by Fashion Illustration September 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Free Expression: Inspired by Fashion Illustration | Drawing can simply be for pleasure. Inspired by fashion illustration, this booklet invites us to elongate, exaggerate, amplify, dare, and make drawings with the confidence of a model on a catwalk. | ||
| #40 Leaves of a Tree / Leaves of a Book October 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Leaves of a Tree / Leaves of a Book | Each fallen leaf is a potential subject to be collected and observed as it dries, changes colour and ossifies. This month we work with leaves not just for their patterns and shapes, but for their material matter. | ||
| #41 Sticks and Stones November 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Sticks and Stones | I find it calming to cup a stone in my hand: the weight, the cool temperature, the smooth surface worn over millennia. A booklet about two abundant materials, one ancient, one newly grown, and what drawing finds in the difference. | ||
| #42 Getting Dark, Making Light December 2025 Patreon︎︎︎ — Getting Dark, Making Light | I like to think of you all dotted around the globe, focusing your attention through drawing, producing energy that glows like stars. Four exercises finding light in the darkest month. | ||
| #43 Horizon (City and Sky) Lines January 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Horizon (City and Sky) Lines | A new year is like making a drawing: an open, clear page full of potential. We simply have to take a deep breath, find our courage and start. | ||
| #44 Line Disruptions, Breaks and Repair February 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Line Disruptions, Breaks and Repair | We are surrounded by lines; from the cables connecting a lampshade to the wall, to the threads in your clothing, to a workman's neon spray paint directing the roadworks. This booklet plays with breaking them, and finding out what repair looks like. | ||
| #45 Drawing from Poems March 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Drawing from Poems | Drawing always orientates my thinking. I have to let it lead me. This month, a poem does the leading. | ||
| #46 Moving Animals April 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Moving Animals | Drawing moving animals has long fascinated me. This booklet is about staying with a creature long enough, eyes mostly on the subject, lines trying to mirror the movement until something emerges. | ||
| #47 Café May 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Café | A café is a front row seat to the theatre of everyday life, for the price of a coffee. This booklet takes that table as a studio. | ||
| #48 Blooms of the Mind June 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Blooms of the Mind | I turn 50 years old this month and am reflecting and returning to what I love - nature, colour, being free to draw what I feel. I hope that you will join me in focussing closely on the hues, patterns, forms in flowers with the aim that we go beyond what we see with our eyes. This is an invitation to draw upon the imagination, the shapes that often lie still inside of us - to activate and celebrate them. | ||
| #49 Blooms of the Mind (Part 2) July 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — Blooms of the Mind (Part 2) | The 'Blooms of the Mind' idea keeps giving! An invitation to take what we began in Juneone stage further. To encourage you to take up more space, to allow yourself the use ofgreater quantity of materials - better quality paper, and to try to gift yourself more time todo it. | ||
| #50 People Reading Books August 2026 Patreon︎︎︎ — People Reading Books | Written through heatwaves and on the move, I realise this subject matter offered me some still and calm. It is a reflection on books and the very particular energy that a sitter immersed in reading brings to a space. I intentionally called this, 'People Reading Books' not just 'People Reading' to celebrate just that. |
How can I get these booklets?
A free Patreon membership︎︎︎ gives you regular updates, a monthly audio interview ‘What it is to draw a face‘ and occasional free workshops.
A paid Supporter membership︎︎︎ (€4+VAT/month) gives you access to every booklet published so far, and a space to share your work on Padlet.
Other membership options include monthly live Zoom drawing sessions, and an archive of recorded workshops to return to any time, or access to the ‘From the Foundation: Drawing Classes’ programme.
Help support me to create more publications
If you are interested in accessing the drawing prompts in these publications, and find it valuable, I would be honoured if you’d consider supporting Drawing is Free at Patreon, where I create new drawing prompt booklets every month and run online drawing sessions for supporters.
A paid Supporter membership︎︎︎ (€4+VAT/month) gives you access to every booklet published so far, and a space to share your work on Padlet.
Other membership options include monthly live Zoom drawing sessions, and an archive of recorded workshops to return to any time, or access to the ‘From the Foundation: Drawing Classes’ programme.
Help support me to create more publications
If you are interested in accessing the drawing prompts in these publications, and find it valuable, I would be honoured if you’d consider supporting Drawing is Free at Patreon, where I create new drawing prompt booklets every month and run online drawing sessions for supporters.
Support Drawing is Free at ︎Patreon︎︎︎