Posted in Art Room, California, Los Angeles, US

Online Life Drawing Classes and Resources

   Published Date: January 13, 2023  Leave a Comment on Online Life Drawing Classes and Resources
Life Drawing poses 
Information Updated January 2023

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.

Keira Leilani Life Drawing Model
Keira Leilani Life Drawing Model
Life Drawing poses
Life Drawing poses
Life Drawing poses

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.

LoveLiveDrawing Tutorial
LoveLiveDrawing Tutorial

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)

Muse Lisboa

Check out their Instagram account for the details: https://www.instagram.com/muse.lisboa/. They host 2-hour sessions with 5-20 minute poses. 5-8 Euro donation accepted. There doesn’t seem to be a set schedule – but sessions look they’re hosted roughly monthly.

Henley School of Art

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

Queer Life Drawing

Life Drawing LGBTQIA+ models on Zoom, organised by Callen McKeon.

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.

Life Drawing +

They run traditional life drawing classes but also run themed classes to build specific skills (e.g. gesture drawing, contour, using ink, etc.). Currently on Zoom.

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.

Life Drawing Rubyyy

Monthly themed life drawing sessions hosted by Print Lydia. I haven’t attended on of these live sessions, but I have purchased a zoom recording.

Fat Life Drawing

Fortnightly life drawing on Zoom.

Life Figure Drawing

Life Drawing hosted by Judith Yaws of Asheville Drawing.

2B or Not 2B Collective

Untutored life drawing on Zoom. Replays available via Gumroad for 5GBP.

The Drawing Sesh

Untutored life drawing on Zoom run by artists and models Karolina and Virgile.

  • 30 second to 20 minute poses.
  • Every Thursday (5-7pm GMT, New York Noon-2pm, Los Angeles 9-11am). Fast paced, 2-12 minute poses. Different theme each week.
  • Every Monday (11am-1pm GMT, New York 6-8am, Los Angeles 3-5am) – Fashion Drawing Workshop. Ideal if you’re trying to build a fashion illustration portfolio.
  • General £15, Students £12.
  • https://www.instagram.com/thedrawingsesh/

Brixton Life Drawing

Untutored life drawing on Zoom hosted by Bex and Anya.

Let Go Life Drawing

Untutored life drawing hosted by Emily.

  • Every Wednesday (7:30-9:30pm GMT, New York 2:30-4:30pm, Los Angeles 11:30am-1:30pm).
  • 3 x 5min poses, 2 x 20 min poses. A 30 min pose followed with some 1-5 minute poses.
  • General £10
  • https://www.instagram.com/letgolifedrawing/

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).

Reconfigure Life Drawing

Hosted by Topaz Pauls.

Thamesmead Life Drawing

Hosted by Jamie Zubairi.

Everybodys Life Drawing

Life Drawing Manchester

London Drawing

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.
Drawing with Dylan Session June 25
This is my sketchbook from the Drawing with Dylan Session on June 25

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


Author: Roving Jay

Jay is a project manager who swapped corporate life for a nomadic existence as a travel writer. She works with authors and entrepreneurs to help them achieve their self-publishing goals and reach their target audience through content marketing. Jay has published a series of travel guides, a travel memoir, and nonfiction books about travel writing. She housesits and volunteers around the globe with her husband, a Hollywood set painter, and she’s never more that 10 paces away from a wi-fi connection.

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