‘Science loves drawing and drawing loves science. A partnership that is older than time itself. A natural fusion that has occurred throughout the history of the human race and this needs to be embraced and encouraged by our educational institutions’. This is what I came away with after a fascinating and enlightening Big Draw’s #STEAMSymposium.

Watching and drawing on my iPad Pro the speakers at the conference made me want to get into science, maths and neurones. I loved the use of drawing within this subject and how artists are drawn to collaborating with the sciences.

Oh and of course as I presented PORTRAITSUNTOLD. I’m proud to be announced as an official Ambassador of The Big Draw too. What am I looking forward to most about being a Big Draw Ambassador? Well for me it’s about supporting the work and campaigns of The Big Draw around visual literacy and the fact that I have witnessed many times that drawing truly does change lives. I could tell you a million stories to support this but I think I’ll save them till I do a live streamed portrait event portraying The Big Draw team and their work here in the UK and internationally. So watch this space!

During the tea breaks I could see networking in full swing. New partnerships and friendships began to set seed. For me this process began through an impromptu PORTRAITSUNTOLD style activity. I set up my iPad Pro projected on to a canvas and invited people to enter into this studio space to draw me digitally whilst I drew them with large acrylic paint pens which people loved and wanted to have a go without! Drawing collaboratively in this way gave us the opportunity to begin a dialogue around the process itself and how we might grow new and exciting partnerships and projects. It somehow puts us as human beings at ease and allows us to be much freer thinkers.

Sometimes we forget that science and the art of drawing are natural partners with each other. It was great to re associate these historical nuances between maths, neurosciences, chemistry and art. It just made me want to draw the movement of diamonds, neurones and mathamatical diagrams with a sense of humanity.

As The Big Draw Ambassador I have been invited to The Royal Society’s Big Draw Event on 22 October. How could I refuse such a great invitation especially as they have a Freud portrait in their collection. See you there!