Immersive Narratives – on drawing

Last week I met Narcissus.

Welcomed into his spring setting, I watched as the shadows of branches curled overhead, as the outlines of a distant mountain marched ever closer, as nymph-like silhouettes became at once, alive. And as the Greek Gods continued to meddle in the minds and lives of mortals, I hear…

“You have 5 minutes for this pose”.

Quickly grabbing my charcoal I make my attempt at bringing to life this age-old myth. And in some small way, I use my drawing to question. To explore the themes that have made the tale of Narcissus such an enduring one – vanity, self-worth, love, death.

And yet, this is just one of the worlds that I’ve stepped into over the course of a few Tuesday evenings at The Royal Drawing School in Shoreditch, enjoying a ten week-long drawing course, ‘Immersive Narratives’.

Over this time, my companions have consisted of Cinderella, Paula Rego’s Jane Eyre, a metamorphosising man, and a group of fisherman. An eclectic bunch, needless to say.

And every time my aim has been the same – to try to capture the scene, the spirit and the different questions these stories ask of the world. And ultimately, I hope to express in some small and individual way, the universal codes and feelings that connect us all.

And I have found, that even as I step out of the art studio this process continues – affecting how I live and work.

In my working life as a strategist, I continually ask questions of people and the worlds they work in. Finding unifying answers, and expressing and codifying those answers, feelings and philosophies in a way that can inspire and direct, is not a dissimilar process. It’s another act of translating emotion, desire, ideology – just without paints and brushes.

And in myself – the skills we learn whilst drawing trickle into every knot and fibre. Practising how to be still and how to observe. Connecting our minds to our bodies. Teaching how to be open and curious. Experiencing empathy and self-expression. Learning how to speak without words.

As author and art historian Laura Cumming summed up, ‘drawing and art slows my eyes and my thought, and it helps with the hardest of all questions’.

This is why (aside from my own enduring love affair with drawing and painting) courses and institutions such as The Royal Drawing School must be protected and supported. We all keenly know that arts and culture has been continually underfunded and undervalued. But I find, that drawing and painting not only offers the same such ‘transferrable skills’ as in the more ‘useful’ subjects and sectors – it goes above and beyond measure.

Because on the surface, the result might simply be ink on paper (or a wonky sketch of narcissus by the water’s edge!). Yet these courses and institutions are teaching us new ways of looking at the world and connecting us to each other. Ways that are just as illuminating and valuable in our workplaces, our lives, as they are in the art studio.

Writing and drawings by Esther Maland

October 2025