Draw and Drink is a live drawing art class that runs in Lincoln’s Cardinal Hat every Monday from 7-9pm.
Ellie Benton, 33, from Lincoln is a Nottingham Trent University alumnus. She runs the Draw and Drink classes. She studied Graphic Design and has done her own work since 2012. She is passionate about creating colourful portraits of people and animals. She has been lucky enough to have her work exhibited in both the UK and Australia.
When Ms Benton was younger, she started going to Drawing classes herself, but at the time the classes were run in a church and only consisted of very small groups. The person who ran them, retired so, Ellie decided to take them on but moved it to the pub.
By moving it to a pub it has a nicer and more informal, feel. It has attracted lots of new people whilst, the prior group still attends.
Art therapy has been around since 1942 so, it isn’t a new form of treatment however, since Covid and rise of mental health, it has increased in popularity. Ellie agrees with the idea of art therapy as she sees “these are therapies as forms of play”.
The office of National Statistics has found that: Around 1 in 5 (21%) adults experienced some form of depression in early 2021 (January 27 to March 7); this is an increase since November 2020 (19%) and more than double that observed before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (10%).
When Ms Benton was asked why she thinks Art Therapy is effective she said, “sometimes we grow up and we get so serious, so art therapy is almost like a meditation, like play and everyone in this group is so supportive, someone will always find something to like in your drawing”.
Phil Johnson, who has been going to the Draw and Drink classes for 5 weeks now, first felt insecure about coming along to them. He said “I can tell how much better I’ve got already; I’ve got an Instagram I update each week. I wish I could draw in the week but because I live on my own, I have no one to draw”.