A great drawing exercise

Getting students to take a step back, have fun, and draw in different ways is good for developing a little confidence on paper. This exercise is a wonderful one-day long lesson to get students comfortable using new materials, with being experimental, or even as a jumping off point for a longer project.

This handout was given to my high school students. The work they created with this either as a direct product of one of the activities, or as a result from inspiration from the activity, were wonderful.

When I began this activity for my students, I demonstrated one of the prompts. I usually picked the blind contour drawing - because it is the silliest, and for some, the most intimidating. My demo was very quick. I took about 30 seconds to draw my face. I love to use a nice soft chalk pastel just because they are one of my favorite materials, and I can really show off their qualities to the students. Chalk pastels are also a really good way to show off mixed media experimentation. I started with them, and then moved to oil pastel, and even some conte-crayons. I think this would be a really, really fun way to do wet and dry media experimentation. Starting with dry drawing media and then moving to wet media would be super fun!

During this activity I really encourage students to, yes, experiment (I think I have used that word enough) but also to use their bodies in different ways to draw. Standing up, or putting their paper on the floor - using large paper deliberately to encourage any large movements while they are drawing, just trying to get them to think more about the materials they are using and the ways they are using them than how the final drawing looks.