Learning to draw realistically is truly an exercise in learning how to see. Visual perception is like a superpower of laser focus to zero in on what you are drawing from life to see things in context as well as the overall big picture. Instead of relying on mental images or replicating images from photographs, drawing from what you actually see in-person is an opportunity to perceive the lines, shapes, spaces, and value changes of what you are drawing with more accuracy.
Drawing becomes more attainable over time with effort, patience, and lots of practice. This laser focus is a superpower that we all have access to but may need to exercise a little more. In the Art I class, students began sharpening their skills with their powers of perception by drawing the outlines of their non-dominant hand without ever looking at the paper. This is known as a blind contour drawing where the artist stares at the object 100% of the time to closely observe the outline edges of what they are drawing.
It takes a lot of brain energy to tune out distractions and negative self-talk while practicing contour line drawings. As the students developed their ability to see spatial relationships and shift "into the zone," we raised the bar with still life objects. Students brought in personal items from home or chose objects from the art room to observe as their drawing subject matter.
There is a tendency for developing artists to draw very small on their paper and erase their work, often out of insecurity. To encourage my students to take risks and let go of their self-doubt, I encouraged them to draw "larger than life" by filling the page with multiple viewpoints of their objects using a light, gestural line quality. This took away the pressure of needing to draw their still life object "perfectly" and also emphasized the overall balance of their composition.
As the students progressed on their line drawings, we reviewed shading from light to dark to represent the natural highlights and shadows in their objects. For introductory students, I like to refer to a scale of 0-5 with zero representing white paper and 5 being the darkest you can shade with our pencil. When we look at their object together, it is easier to identify which areas might be more of a 3 than a 2 or closer to a 4 with the amount of pressure needed to shade the value.
In the Art II class, I built upon these observational drawing skills with students by learning to draw portraits. We began with contour line exercises and then shifted to life drawing by partnering up with one person posing as the model while the other draws their portrait.
Portraits can be intimidating and for those who do not think they can draw well, it is almost like running into a brick wall of fear. When I noticed some students erasing heavily or laughing at themselves, I knew that I needed to take a different approach. I began the next lesson with an opening question, "What holds back your creativity?" and my students responded with how they were self-critical and worried about "not messing up." To tackle this fear head on, we continued drawing portraits from observation but put a twist on the process by trying timed creative bursts of energy where students had to fill their page with light, gestural lines in just 2 minutes each. When the time was up, we flipped to another page and did it again, and again, until it was more about finding the line and really looking at their model instead of focusing so much on the outcome of their drawing paper.
We did one final drawing exercise where students were given large newsprint and charcoal sticks to draw portraits that filled the page and then trade papers with someone else in the classroom. I encouraged them to rotate their classmate's paper and abstract the composition by overlapping their drawings around the other portraits, taking inspiration from what others had done with layers of lines. This allowed students to be bold, take risks, and contribute to the overall composition instead of worrying about how it would turn out. We took breaks for in-progress art critiques so that students could see what others had done and validate their work.
On the final portrait project, students were given the option to abstract their composition with observational portraits in any way that they chose. They could exaggerate the scale, draw different people, or overlap their portraits using charcoal and/or graphite pencil. Students were more engaged with the personal choices and even took photographs of their partners so that they could work on their artwork at home. I also demonstrated a few watercolor techniques and gave them the option to render the work in watercolor as well as pencil shading. It was exciting to see the students using their observational skills to think critically and problem solve in their compositions.
Sometimes the hardest part of drawing is staring down at that blank paper and getting started. Overcoming self-doubt and stretching the limits of our creativity takes practice. Drawing is a learnable, teachable skill that gives our brains the tools for perception, intuition, imagination, and creativity. Turn on that switch for laser-eye focus and keep drawing what you see!
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