The BIG Draw

The Big Draw Festival 2026 is here! We are so excited to bring you this year's Festival, 'Make a Mark'.

26th October 2026 - Wardown House, Museum and Gallery

27th October 2026 - Stockwood Discovery Centre

29th October 2026 - Hat Factory Arts Centre

11:30am, 1:30pm and 3pm on all 3 dates

The Big Draw Festival is the world’s largest celebration of drawing, bringing people together through the power of creativity. Whether you’re an individual, school, museum, care home, heritage site, or community centre, The Big Draw Festival provides a platform to explore drawing in all its forms.

The theme for The Big Draw Festival 2026 is 'Make a Mark'! Building on 2025’s theme Drawn Together, which celebrated community and connection, Make a Mark turns the focus to the act of creation itself.

This year, we celebrate drawing as more than a visual language, recognising it as a tactile form of expression that connects sensory experience with emotion. Make a Mark invites participants to view drawing as a dynamic and evolving process, a form of playful inquiry and reflection that helps us question, record and engage with the world around us.

Mark making transforms creativity into action. Through gesture, movement and touch, drawing becomes a language of one’s own and a unique form of expression and individuality. At its heart, The Big Draw Festival provides a shared global platform to turn marks into meaning, and ideas into action and positive change.

Finally, Make a Mark reflects on the lasting impact of creativity, honouring drawing as a timeless language that builds creative legacies across people, places and generations.

This year's festival offers a space for experimentation and creative freedom where everyone can get involved and make their mark!

#TheBigDraw #BDF2026 #DrawnTogether

No need to book, just drop in and speak to a member of staff when you arrive.