This Easter we're playing with mark-making and materials to turn drawing on its head! Come and get stuck in this spring with SEAson of Drawing activities for the whole family, inspired by the Van de Velde exhibition at the Queen's House. 

These free drop-in sessions are suitable for all ages and abilities. 

Sessions run from 11am - 1pm & 2pm - 4pm and take place in the Learning Space, on the ground floor of the National Maritime Museum. 

Collaged Butterflies 

Sunday 2 April 

Come together to explore different mediums and marks, and create beautiful butterflies inspired by images of nature within the collection.  

Exquisite Eel 

Monday 3 April 

Join a collaborative drawing game first used by surrealist artists to create bizarre and intuitive drawings. Families can make consequence drawings together inspired by sea animals and add to the creation of a giant eel. 

This Way Home 

Tuesday 4 & Tuesday 11 April 

Come and leave your mark using string, wool, coloured tape and more to mark your journey from home to the museum, and add significant spots to a river Thames cut-out to create a changing map of journeys. 

Soapy Scrimshaw 

Wednesday 5 & Wednesday 12 April 

Two hundred years ago, when sailors travelled the globe in search of whales to hunt for their meat, oil and baleen, a whole new craft was invented. Sailors passed the time between hunts by making scrimshaw – carving designs into whales’ teeth. Discover the scrimshaw in the Museum’s collection and make your own to take home using soap. 

Mapping Monsters 

Thursday 6 April 

You are invited to help create a fictional map of land, water and sea monsters! Use drawing materials and rice to chart out new landscapes, and the ships and sea monsters in the waters that surround them. 

Drawing The Technical 

Friday 7 April 

Come and make drawings of fantastic, impossible machinery for ships, lighthouses and wharves by using random shapes and lines, connecting them up and adding details and inventions a use for your machine. 

Documenting Curiosities 

Sunday 9 & Sunday 16 April 

Become a natural history scientist. Search in the sand to find a range of different fossils to draw and document, inspired by Mary Anning’s documented drawings of the curiosities she found in Lyme Regis.

Drawing Sea Sounds 

Monday 10 April 

Come and listen to sea shanties and maritime music, sounds from the oceans and the creatures who live there, and draw what you think you hear. 

Family trails

Thursday 13 April 

Pick up one of the family trails or backpacks from the 'Play and Explore' trolley and discover objects, stories and people in the Museum galleries. 

More information

Giant Conversation Drawing 

Friday 14 April

Join in with our huge floor drawing. Draw and plot the journey of boats across the water, like the artist Van de Velde and the king did long ago, having a conversation by only using drawing.