Information Updated February 2025

I used to love my weekly trips to life drawing sessions. Sunday was a popular day for this, but there were also a few mid-week sessions held on the Westside of Los Angeles. Now that I’m back in town for a little bit, I called around the studios to see if they’d started them up again. But because of COVID nobody is holding in person sessions, and I’ve been searching online to do some virtual life drawing practice as a way to improve my observational skills, and learn to focus on the key lines (and forget the detail) during the short poses.

Croquis Cafe

The Croquis Cafe is a video channel with weekly life drawing models recorded live and are free to access. They used to be over on YouTube but because of restrictions on content, they’ve moved their channel over to Vimeo. Each session is a collection of one, two, and five minute poses, and there’s a countdown clock so you can see how much time you have left.

They have a vast collection of male and female models, and I was glad to see they also have pregnant and plus-size models. I like drawing bigger forms with skin creases and folds, and I found a favourite on Croquis—a plus-size model called Keira Leilani.

I’ve been jumping around different sessions, and I can see this is going to be an invaluable online resource to hone my life drawing skills until the in-person sessions start up again.

The website for Croquis Cafe is called On Air Video.

Once a year their host an event called Figuary, which is the brainchild of the Croquis Cafe and Love Live Drawing. The concept is to provide artists with an intense month of figure drawing and drawing instruction.  

Love Live Drawing

Love Life Drawing was created by Kenzo and hi mum, Mayko, to help beginners struggling with life drawing, and they have free online tutorials and an active YouTube channel.

With my current passion for contour and blind contour drawings, their video tutorial about simplifying references caught my eye.

I had a go at a couple of the exercises in this video, and liked the concept of training the eye to look at line and tonal variances.

Between these two online resources, you have everything you need to build your life drawing skills—lots of model poses, and lots of skills tutorials.

A good starting point at Love Live Drawing is to take their free Beginners course, which consists of 10 video tutorials to walk you through the basics of figure drawing. Each lesson is covered in a video or text version.

This is a series of lessons designed to help you build a solid foundation of life drawing skills, with the end goal being expressive drawings in your own style. They go through a straightforward and doable drawing process and a set of exercises designed to help you develop skills.

The Renaissance Workshop (Scuola Libera Del Nudo)

• Every Wednesday (GMT 4-6pm, New York 11am-1pm, Los Angeles 8-10am)
• Every Friday and Saturday (GMT 7-9 pm, New York 2-4pm, Los Angeles 11am-1pm)
• Live, unguided classical life drawing £6.99
• 7x3m poses, 4x10m poses, 2x20m poses
• www.therenaissanceworkshop.com
• @therenaissanceworkshop on Instagram

Henley School of Art

Online workshops and life drawing sessions run by JoJo Harris (@buffaloboo). They always seem to have fabulous models.

• They used to hold weekly Life Drawing Sessions Every Monday, Portrait Drawing Sesson Every Wednesday, Portrait and Life Drawing Classes Every Saturday. Many of the historical sessions are available as a replay, but it doesn’t seem like there are regular scheduled events at the moment.
• https://www.thehenleyschoolofart.com
• https://www.instagram/henleyschoolofart/

Queer Life Drawing

Life Drawing LGBTQIA+ models on Zoom. In 2025 QLD will be taken over by @emoryartmodel. Check Instagram for the schedule. (eta Spring 2025)

• Every other Sunday (3-4:30pm GMT) via Zoom.
• https://www.callenmckeon.co.uk
• https://www.instagram.com/queerlifedrawing/
• Tickets £8.
• Different levels of donation based on your situation.

All the Young Nudes

This Life Drawing club was established in 2008 and is hosted by Joanna. Replays are available, and they also have a poses on demand subscription service.

• Replays can be access through CrowdCast https://www.crowdcast.io/alltheyoungnudes
• £7 Earlybird, £10 Regular, with background soundtracks. 2-5 minutes poses, then 10 and 20 minute poses.
• Intermittent event scheduling.
• https://www.atyn.co.uk
• https://www.instagram.com/atynudes/

Life Drawing (Atelier 3/4)

Not a lot of information available online, and the only website link was the bookwhen.com link for booking, but no visibility to other events or who runs this.

• Every Wednesday and Saturday (Berlin 8-10:30pm, GMT 7-9:30pm, New York 2-4:30pm, Los Angeles 11am-1:30pm)
• Short and long poses.
• Last Saturday of the month – Portrait
• 10 Euro / 7 Euro discounted (might be out of date)
• https://www.instagram.com/life_drawing_kreuzberg_berlin

Fat Life Drawing

Fortnightly life drawing on Zoom.

• https://www.instagram.com/fatlifedrawing/
• Monthly on the last Sunday of the month. 7pm GMT.
• Tickets sold via Eventbrite. Check event notification on instagram, and for the sign up link.

Drawing is Free

Monday Portrait Sessions. Each pose lasts as long as the individual tracks of music. You’ll be asked if you want to model for one of the tracks, but no pressure – you can decline.

• https://www.drawingisfree.org
• 9am and 6pm CET (Paris timezone)
• No need to book, just join the Zoom session.

Life Figure Drawing

Life Drawing hosted by Judith Yaws of Asheville Drawing.

• Assorted events on a Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday, and times vary.
• 5 to 20 minute poses. Sessions are sometimes 2 hours, and sometimes 3.
• https://www.lifefiguredrawing.com
• https://www.instagram.com/lifefiguredrawing
• Minimum donation $15, but $20 recommended. Tickets available through Tickettailor.com, with a link on their instagram.

Brixton Life Drawing

Untutored life drawing on Zoom hosted by Bex and Anya.

• One Monday a month (towards the end of the month)
• Pay what you can. Suggested donation £5-15. Tickets via Eventbrite.
• https://www.brixtonlifedrawing.com
• https://www.instagram.com/brixtonlifedrawing/

Drawing Cabaret Couture

This is an online fashion gallery and independent life drawing company in London, founded by artist and set designer Matthew Lawrence and professional dancer and model Janet Mayer of J’adore La Vie (London’s high fashion cabaret).

• Every Thursday (11am-1pm)
• Tickets via eventbrite – £5.
• https://www.instagram.com/drawingcabaretcouture/
• https://www.drawingcabaretcouture.com

Thamesmead Life Drawing

Hosted by Jamie Zubairi.

• Every Tuesday (GMT 7-9pm, New York 2-4pm, Los Angeles 11am-2pm)
• Every Saturday (GMT 5-7pm, New York Noon-2pm, Los Angeles 9-11am)
• £5 for 2 hours
• 2 to 20 minute poses
• https://www.instagram.com/thamesmeadlifedrawing/
• https://thamesmeadlifedrawing.co.uk/tickets/

Everybodys Life Drawing

• Every Tuesday (6-7.30pm GMT, 1-2:30pm New York, 10-11:30 Los Angeles)
• £5 per person
• 5 to 30 minute poses
• https://www.instagram.com/everybodys_lifedrawing/

Life Drawing Manchester

• Every Thursday (GMT 7pm, New York 2pm, Los Angeles 11am) – figure drawing
• Every Sunday (GMT 6pm, New York 1pm, Los Angeles 10am) – Portraits
• Cost £6
• https://www.instagram.com/lifedrawingmanchester/

London Drawing

• Every Tuesday 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm GMT
• Every Saturday 11:00 am – 1:00 pm GMT
• https://londondrawing.com/calendar/
• https://www.instagram.com/londondrawing/

If you’ve found a good online resource for life drawing, please share it in the comments below.

Check out the listings at Event Bright for Figure Drawing classes: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/online/figure-drawing/

Sketching with Dylan

Dylan hosts uninstructed portrait drawing sessions. As an urban sketcher who wants to get better at drawing faces quickly this is an AMAZING resource. Each artist is drawn, and creates a pose based on a prompt provided by the previous model. Each artist takes it in turns to pose and provide the prompts. It’s fun and interactive, and a good training ground for quick portrait sketches.

• 30 second, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 4 minute and 6 minute poses
• Every Tuesday (6:30pm GMT, New York 1:30pm, Los Angeles 10:30am)
• Every Friday (9am GMT, New York 4am, Los Angeles 1am)
• Live, unguided poses, based on different prompts.
• https://www.instagram.com/dylan_sara/ – link to the Zoom sessions is in Dylan’s profile. Check out the #drawingwithdylan hashtag.

If you host online life drawing classes – leave a comment below with the information so I can add your events to this listing.