Lesson idea: Drawing

I love doing observational drawing lessons with students! I studied Drawing at degree level so I particularly enjoy the introduction lesson as I introduce drawing approaches that I have found work for me. I don't know about you but I always find I get a good portion of students who are fearful of drawing and who proclaim 'I can't draw' or something of the like, so I like to do this lesson to warm them up and build their confidence in their drawing skills. Instead of jumping in with a technical approach focusing on perspective I like to introduce a series of activities that focus on training their co-ordination between their hands and eyes. I feel it's a great way to introduce drawing that will lead to a better understanding when they move onto more technical approaches but I also feel there are some students (myself included) who will never use a technical approach because it just doesn't work for them - but they can learn perspective by eye instead! 

The image above is from a recent observational drawing lesson I did with students but is typical of the way I structure the session. I like to start with quick studies, I'm talking 30 seconds-2 minutes, before moving on to longer studies and I always use a range of approaches. I like to use contour drawing, continuous line, blind drawing, negative space and wrong hand drawing. I'll normally do quick demonstrations on the white board, smart board, flip chart, what ever I have access too but I also like to refer to artists who use these techniques so I put together the sheet below (available to download from our TES resources, HERE) which shows artists and the techniques used! I normally set students homework to make notes about the techniques in their sketchbooks following the drawing lesson and to do further research on one of the artists. 

As always we'd love to here from you if you use similar approaches or if you have a go using ours in the classroom!
- Claire  ❤