Teaching Students Drawing Basics
For about a decade, I taught high school art and struggled with the challenge of helping students draw without relying on grids or tracing. During my college years, the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain was instrumental in understanding the perspective of a “non-artist.” As artists, we inherently know how to observe, but I noticed my students weren’t truly looking at their subjects. This is where the saying “Draw what you see, not what you know” becomes essential. But how do you teach that skill?
One day, Michele and I (Amanda) sat down to tackle this challenge. Our mission was clear: teach the fundamentals of drawing in a way that resonates with students. We decided to base our lessons on something relatable and local, not the works of a long-deceased artist. Thus, the Drawing Basics with Wyland unit was born. It’s a unique approach that connects students with their subject matter in a meaningful way, ensuring they grasp the essentials of drawing by truly observing their world.
Learning to Look and think like an artist
I like to start my students out with brain teasers and optical illusions (which they LOVE!). It might sound strange, but these exercises show students how differently our brains work! We discuss the roles of the right and left hemispheres of the brain: most of us are left-brain dominant, which is the linguistic side, while the right brain, our creative side, often needs more training to strengthen. Again, this concept is inspired by the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
An example of a brain teaser is this one here, where you have to say the color you see, not the word. Try it! You really have to focus!
Learning to Look with Blind Contour
Before diving into the basics of drawing, I introduce my students to the art of Blind Contour Drawing. This exercise encourages them to observe every detail and truly see their subject, rather than relying on memory.
The primary goal of blind contour drawing is to shift focus from preconceived notions to the actual subject in front of you. To guide your students through this exercise, follow these two essential rules:
- Once your pencil touches the paper, do not lift it until you have finished your drawing.
- Resist the urge to look at your paper until your drawing is complete.
To ensure students adhere to these guidelines, use a simple trick: take a paper plate and create a hole in the center. Place a pencil through the hole and position the plate towards the top of the pencil. This clever setup prevents students from glancing at their drawings!
Basic Drawing Skills- Breaking Down an image into simple shapes and gestures
As a beginning artist, mastering the art of drawing from direct observation requires practice and consideration of four key concepts to achieve accuracy and realism. By conquering these steps, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a master artist!
- Gesture Drawing: This technique employs quick, fluid lines to capture the movement, action, or pose of a subject.
- Contour Line: A contour line drawing focuses on the shape and form of a subject, using continuous lines without shading to create simple outlines.
- Basic Shape: As fundamental building blocks of design, basic shapes create structure, convey meaning, and organize visual elements.
- Value and Light Logic: Value refers to the lightness or darkness of an object, while light logic is a system for using value patterns to create the illusion of space and form.
Drawing Basics with Wyland
We teach in Redondo Beach, a charming beach town in Los Angeles. If you ever drive down the California coast, you’ll discover picturesque, mountainous beach towns enriched with several of Robert Wyland’s Whaling Walls (from Redondo Beach, to Long Beach, and Laguna Beach!), which feature life-size marine life. These murals are part of an environmental movement to raise awareness about conservation and inspire people to appreciate the ocean. They are hard to miss and are familiar to many of our students. The mural in Redondo Beach covers a large power plant right on the coast, where many of our students skateboard or ride bikes every day.
(Fun fact: this is also the home of Robert Wyland!)
Our inspiration for the local connection theme of our Drawing Basics unit came from these murals. Creating an art unit that our students could relate to was the perfect hook to inspire them to create. This led to the creation of the “Drawing Basics with Wyland” unit.
In this unit, students will learn how to start a drawing with gestures, simple shapes, and contour lines, eventually transforming these elements into more realistic images. We cover composition, contour lines, geometric and organic shapes, and color value within this lesson. The Art History component focuses on Robert Wyland (hence the sea creature theme), and we explore philosophical aesthetics through an assignment and discussion on the controversy surrounding the proposed removal of one of Wyland’s murals in Redondo Beach, CA. In essence, students learn to draw what they see, not what they know. This scaffolding approach is an excellent way to introduce drawing to beginning art students, and sets the tone for the entire year.
This is BY FAR a student favorite in our classes. Our students have so much success with the project and more importantly, they build confidence in their skill and drawing abilities. We have students who come back to visit year after year and they always remember and bring up this project that they loved. We highly recommend you give it a try. Both you and your students will be amazed by the results. We never get tired of teaching it.
The entire UNIT can be found here→ Drawing Basics with Wyland
What’s Included:
- 10+ student assignments/ lessons
- Links to teacher example practice works and tutorials
- Video demonstrations and step-by-step Drawing Tutorials
- 5+ Google slideshows (with editing access)
- Detailed “Sequence of Events” agenda
- Rubric/ student evaluation
- Unique Critique page with a slideshow
- Abundant student example projects
- Complete Digital Sketchbook for your reuse!
For our Step by Step Tutorials:
- Step-by-Step Shark:
- Step-by-Step Turtle:
- Step-by-Step Dolphin & Clown Fish:
- Step-by-Step from a Reference Image:
- Drawing Basics Step-by-step Tutorial Bundle
Thank you so much for reading! We would LOVE to hear from you! Leave us a comment on where you have seen a Wyland Whaling Wall or how you teach Basic Drawing Skills in the classroom… Your idea may help a fellow Art Teacher! For more inspiration on Teaching Beginning Art, Check out our Art 1 Curriculum Blog
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