Win a Guided Tour of Gainsborough's House for up to 4 people with Suffolk Big Weekend We are joining forces with Suffolk Big Weekend and giving away 2 free guided tours of Gainsborough’s House for up to 4 people! Discover the secrets behind the paintings and uncover the rich history of this beautiful, historic house....
We've joined forces with the National Saturday Club network to offer free art classes to 13–16 year olds who live, work or study in Sudbury and the surrounding areas. From Saturday 25 October 2025 to Saturday 27 June 2026, we have a rich programme of workshops lined up, facilitated by a team of highly skilled...
#DrawnTogether What is the Big Draw Festival? The Big Draw Festival is the world’s biggest celebration of drawing and it takes place across the globe every year from 1–31 October. Since its launch in 2000, The Big Draw Festival has championed drawing as a universal language and a powerful tool for learning, self-expression, and innovation....
In this session, you’ll join a group of likeminded people to create portraits & landscapes in surprising and unconventional ways – from shared mark-making to guided drawing challenges that push creativity beyond the ordinary. Alongside your visual experiments, you’ll also explore how sound and music can shape and interact with drawing. And if the mood...
Strike a pose in this special edition of The Big Draw! Tom’s Tuesday welcomes you to come together to make large, collaborative drawings using our bodies as a tool for expression. We’ll be listening to music, dancing, stretching and capturing our actions by doodling. Led by Gainsborough’s House creative team and Dance East choreographer and...
Discover the art of portraiture through playful experimentation with mono print. In this session, you’ll explore the rich, expressive possibilities of mono print techniques to create bold and surprising portraits. Working with a mix of guided exercises and collaborative approaches, you’ll find new ways to capture the essence of people beyond traditional drawing. Alongside the...
Step into a workshop where language becomes a visual playground. You’ll explore text and typeface as creative tools – cutting, layering, and collaging words and letters into bold, experimental compositions. Through playful exercises, you’ll discover how text can move beyond communication to become pattern, and image in its own right. Alongside the visual work, you’ll...
Join us for the dazzling finale of The Big Draw Festival 2025 at Gainsborough’s House. Throughout the week, young people have been experimenting with drawing, sound and movement—now their creations come alive in an extraordinary light projection display that will transform our historic garden into a glowing canvas of colour, music and celebration. Enjoy the...
Perfect for beginners or anyone looking to refresh their skills, we'll be designing, carving and printing Christmas cards to take home and impress your friends & family with. We'll provide all the materials you need, including card designs however if you would like to bring your own designs along, please do! Limited to 8 spaces...
Join Sue Marsdon with the life drawing group on the first Saturday of every month. Enjoy a full day of life drawing at Gainsborough's House with lots of different poses throughout the day. While Sue will suggest some poses and techniques, this session is untutored, and therefore best suited to those with some drawing experience....
Gainsborough’s House is partnering with Stanley Spencer Gallery to present a major exhibition of the works of one of England’s greatest twentieth-century painters, Sir Stanley Spencer (1891–1959). The exhibition will include major loans from Tate, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Leeds Museums and Galleries, and other public lenders, as well as rarely-seen works from private collections. Stanley...
Humphrey Ocean (b. 1951), Home, brings together paintings and drawings, spanning three decades, inspired by familiar but unassuming motifs that help define modern places. He has long been concerned with the detail of design within his own lifetime: the horizontal window, road signs, cars, concrete, a bungalow, all the human and haphazard incident that has...
