The Big Draw

The Big Draw, with events taking place every October, is an initiative set up by the Campaign for Drawing with the aim to get everyone drawing. The Campaign was inspired by the influential art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) who believed that drawing is the basis for all visual thinking. Fine art, cartoons, maps, architectural drawings, scientific drawings - and forgeries! - can be found in archives.

The Archives Hub provides access to information about these wonderful resources by describing the archive collections held in universities and colleges throughout the United Kingdom. As the Archives Hub service does not currently hold images of the archives that it describes, we are grateful to the institutions who have allowed us to use their images on these pages.

• Artists' Suffrage League (1905-1912): the ASL created posters, postcards, and other artwork for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies as part of the campaign for votes for women.
• Glasgow School of Art was designed by the artist and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928).
• The bird book: sketches of Devon and Cornwall's birdlife from the early 19th century.
• Political sketches by John Doyle (1797-1868): as "HB", Doyle was political cartoonist for the London Times newspaper.
• 17th century portolano charts: early marine charts, as much admired now for their decoration as for their historical information.
• Phil May (1864-1903) was a cartoonist with Punch magazine, and many of his works are included in the papers of the National Liberal Club.
• David Gregory (1661-1708), astronomer and mathematician.

Related links

• British Cartoon Archive: Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature (University of Kent at Canterbury)
• Artist in Residence in the Archives at the London School of Economics
• Sources for the History of Fine Art and Artists from The National Archives
• Intute: Arts and Humanities: Visual Arts: free online service providing access to the best Web resources for education and research
• 24 Hour Museum: gateway to UK museums and galleries

• Big Draw 2007: Elephants Never Forget The Big Draw on the Archives Hub Blog!

Suggested reading

Links are provided to records on Copac for these items. Copac is the free, web based national union catalogue, containing the holdings of many of the major university and National Libraries in UK and Ireland plus a number of special libraries. For more information about accessing items see the FAQs on the Copac website.

• David Cuppleditch Phil May: the artist and his wit. Records on Copac
• Elaine Grogan Beginnings - Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Early Sketches. Records on Copac
• Chris Powling Quentin Blake. Records on Copac
• Royal Albert Memorial Museum (Exeter) John Gendall (1789-1865): Exeter's forgotten artist. Records on Copac
• John Ruskin The elements of drawing. Records on Copac
• Gerald Scarfe Gerald Scarfe Records on Copac
• Alastair Smith The Usborne Complete Book of Drawing. Records on Copac

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Archives Hub Blog: The Big Draw 2007: Elephants Never Forget and The Big Draw 2008: The Big Wheel.