Raay - Royal Adelaide Art and Yoga

13/05/2026

Oh my goodness, here we are only a couple of days away from this week's RAAY Drawing School, and it's going to be another great week. Helen and Kitty are delivering their second sessions, and I'm super excited for both. From 2-4, Helen takes a look (so to speak), at observational drawing - what we think we see vs what we actually see - and introduces some simple exercises to improve technique. Kitty's session, from 5-7, takes a deep dive into the fundamental aspects of drawing a comic - converting ideas into thumbnails, thumbnails into panels, and all the pieces that fit together to form a comic. I'll be on hand to answer questions, make tea nad generally be in the way. There are a couple spots available on both sessions, and each sessions is only £6. The groups are small, so booking is advised - DM me, or email - mrt@evanonrev.co.uk

See you on Friday.

I've tacked a few snaps from my session last week to this post to get you in the mood for drawing. And, check it out! At the weekend, somebody left a spontaneous installation tucked behind our gas inlet pipe, which we thought was pretty cool, so we left it, and it's still there!

One final note, Paper Shop this week is on Saturday the 16th from 11-3.

08/05/2026

Yikes! Hey all, week 2 RAAY Drawing School sessions are tonight, me at 2pm (me = Matt), and Ed Tapper at 5pm, and there are a couple of spots available if you'd like to come. I'm doing wacky drawing exercises, and some still life drawing, Ed's doing observation with organic forms. The sessions last 2 hours, and are £6 each. Also, it occurs to me I haven't introduced myself or Ed yet, so while he's rooting around in the cupboard for some drawings, here’s a little info about me. One more thing, Paper Shop is tomorrow (Saturday the 9th) from 11-3, so come on down, the shelves are full of interesting papers. (One final thing – during the day, I’ll only have access to my social media, so don’t email me! DM me here, or gimme a text at 07966 934954)

OK. I'm Matt Thomas, I run RAAY with my partner in all things, Nic Sharpe. Nic mostly looks after the yoga side of things, but she's a gifted & quirky artist herself, so she dips her toes in a lot of RAAY’s art doings. My father was a drawer & painter, and he started teaching me, when I was about six, by drawing the basics of shape, shading, perspective, tone, on sheets of paper that I copied. I also spent hours looking at the Time/Life set of books of famous artists we had in the house - Winslow Homer, Georgia O'Keeffe, Goya, Picasso, Delacroix, Mary Cassatt. And comic books. That's how it started, in a nutshell.

Drawing has been central to my practice as long as I've had one, and while I’m not a rigorous draughtsman, I've developed a vocabulary of marks, shapes & compositional ideas that are second nature to me after 40 years. Lately I've been obsessed with walnut ink, layering, and the paper that I started making in the studio about 8 years ago.

I'd like my sessions to be a relaxing, gentle exploration of what drawing can be while staying anchored to the basics of pencil and paper. Here's some work, and info about my sessions, and general info about drawing school.

My sessions start, eep!, today the 8th of May. To book, email mrt@evanonrev.co.uk or DM me.

To see more of my work, my instagram is I do throw stuff up there from time to time.

02/05/2026

Adelaide Street represent.

Thank you to the very honest person who rescued my colleague’s bag inc his wallet and tied it to our car, Says a great deal about the sense of community in the Adelaide Street area. Adelaide Street AngelsRaay - Royal Adelaide Art and Yoga Plymouth City CouncilDevon & Cornwall PolicePlymouth Labour

02/05/2026

Well, the first day of RAAY Drawing School is in the can and what a delight it was. Helen got the ball rolling with multisensory drawing and drawing machines. At one point while she had the group working on response to sounds, I was in the next room switching a power drill on and off, just to tweak things a bit. I crashed the session during drawing machines, and had a graphite stick attached to a stick attached to my fingers with a rubber band - not easy to negotiate, but great results. Kitty carried on in the evening session with mini-zines, which we made on our own and as a group. I crashed the zine session because I love zines, and it was definitely a trip to get into the zone working as a group and discover that I could carry on a narrative started by my neighbour. By the end of all these developing stories being passed around, we actually had four killer zines with fully realised narrative arcs and hilarious artwork. Already excited for next Friday, when Ed Tapper and i will be delivering our first sessions. Whoop!

29/04/2026

Hey all, the first sessions of Drawing School are this Friday, the 1st - Helen at 2pm and Kitty at 5pm - and there are a few spaces available, but the limit is six, so there aren't many. Details to book below. Meanwhile...

RAAY Drawing School - Meet the tutors!

Next up: Dr. Helen Billinghurst. Helen was one of the first people I met when I came to Plymouth, and we’ve known each other now for the best part of 20 years. In that time, we’ve exhibited work together, collaborated on projects, sat around drawing, talking & thinking, been on walks, and immersed ourselves in each other’s artistic practices.

In recent years, Helen has intertwined her drawing practice with performance, ritual, mythmaking and walking, working with Phil Smith as the duo Crab & Bee. Their many undertakings include Crab & Bee’s Matter Of Britain, published by Peakrill Press in 2025 and described, on the Peakrill website as ‘a banishing spell against nostalgia’, and, from way back in 2019, Plymouth Labyrinth – a project that planted RAAY at the centre of a heady storm of walking, talking, dancing, breathing, drawing, postcards, and several hundred metres of red string. Helen brings this multidisciplinary approach to her series of sessions for the RAAY Drawing School, sessions that will consider drawing fundamentals like the basics of observation, form and proportion, as well as more esoteric considerations like drawing machines and drawing in response to senses other than sight/observation.

We’re thrilled to have Helen on board for the Drawing School. Her sessions will be fun, relaxed, and packed with good stuff. I’m pretty sure I’ll be sneaking in to take part as often as I can. Here are a couple pages of samples of Helen’s work, along with her page from the session catalogue – have a look, and then sign up. Helen’s sessions start on 1st May – dip into one or two, or better yet, take them all.

To book, email mrt@evanonrev.co.uk or DM me.

To see a bigger picture, the full RAAY Drawing School programme is in a post pinned to the top of the page.

To see more of Helen’s work her Instagram is Go there now and check it out.

24/04/2026

RAAY Drawing School - Meet the tutors!

To say I’m excited about what we're getting ourselves into with this drawing school project is an understatement. At this point, I’m fizzing. The group who've come on board as tutors have a wealth of experience as artists and educators, and that experience covers a range of disciplines and ideas. They're also really cool people. With that in mind, it seems like a good idea to introduce everybody, and I'm going to start today with Kitty McEwan.

As an artist, illustrator, zine jam host and event coordinator, I think it’s fair to say Kitty’s been a fixture of the Plymouth art scene for several years now. I think I first met her in 2017 or maybe 2018, when she, and a gang of young artists, organised an exhibition, zine and workshops for the Plymouth Art Weekender. It was an ambitious project for a group of young people (it was an ambitious project for anybody!), and it was one of the highlights of the Weekender that year. In the office at RAAY, we have a massive glue stick drawn with magic marker from that exhibition, and it’s one of our prized possessions. Since then, Kitty’s drawn comics, done illustrations for local businesses, hosted dozens of zine jams and zine making workshops, and managed to get a couple of degrees (BA & MA), from Plymouth University as well. So I’m thrilled she’s on the drawing school team, presenting six sessions on making comics.

Kitty’s sessions are a comprehensive introduction to sequential art & storytelling - we’re privileged to be able to offer them in a small group setting. In addition to some examples of Kitty’s work, I’ve included her page from the session catalogue in this post – have a look, and then sign up. If you’re interested in sequential art, or even if you don’t think you are, this is a fantastic opportunity. Kitty’s sessions start on 1st May, so don’t wait!

To book, email mrt@evanonrev.co.uk or DM me.

To see a bigger picture, the full RAAY Drawing School programme is in a post pinned to the top of the page.

If you haven't seen Kitty's comic strip, get over to her Instagram now and check it out, it's great.

22/04/2026

Hey all, this Saturday is the day for the April meeting of PHSS at RAAY. Open to people with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder & Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome & their carers.

Contact details for Nic on the first card. The second card has some basic information about the session. For more info about the group, get in touch with Nic, she's happy to discuss all things hypermobile.

21/04/2026

Here it is folks, the RAAY Drawing School Summer 2026 schedule. RAAY Drawing School is a pilot project, a series of drawing sessions delivered by four tutors/artists over a 12 week period, starting on May 1. Our goal is to offer a range of sessions that are fun, experimental and engaging, that will appeal to beginners as well as experienced drawers. Each tutor has developed a group of sessions based on their own ideas, skills and interests, and we think the result is an interesting mix that includes both fundamentals and fresh ideas about drawing.

The sessions are designed for small groups - maximum of six people per session, so booking is recommended. We took some bookings on the open day last week, so we currently have four spots available for each session. You can book onto one session - they are designed to work as stand alones, or you can book onto a few. Have a look through the programme to get a feel for what's on offer.

Thanks to generous support from Plymouth Octopus - POP through a Stonehouse Stakeholder grant, we can offer sessions at a very reasonable rate - £6 per session.

For the moment, booking is the old-fashioned way - send us a DM here with the date(s) you want, or email mrt@evanonrev.co.uk

For more info, get in touch.

Right, I think that's it for now.

Nudge Community Builders Plymouth Play Scrapstore Community Builder - Stonehouse

17/04/2026

Hey look, RAAY Drawing School Open Day is underway. We're here, we're drawing, we're eating cake, there are sketchbooks. Come over and draw with us

17/04/2026

Whoop! Moving into post-a-lot mode for ahile - the RAAY Drawing School Open Day gets underway in a couple hours. I've got to bolt down a pot of coffee, get all the materials packed up, leave the house, stop at the cake shop...and then I can get to work. It'll be great! Come on over from 10, have a chat, find out what's going on, do some drawing.

16/04/2026

Hey, I know it's late, but I just wanted to remind you that tomorrow - Friday - is the RAAY Drawing School Open Day, at RAAY, from 10-5. Come along and find out what it's all about, meet all four tutors - Matt will be around all day, ED and Helen will be around a good portion of the day, and Kitty will arrive at about 3:30 - have a cuppa and do some drawing. Especially if it's raining outside.