Anyone Wanna Talk Drawing Instruction and Philosophy

[mom2bee]

So, as a kid I used to think that drawing was a talent, then as a teen I realized that drawing is a skill that can be taught explicitly and directly. In recent times I've grown to feel that drawing should be given the same priority as writing because being able to clearly, skillfully and fluently communicate your thoughts--whether verbally or visually--is important. I was delighted to find that some artists and authors feel the same way and have began reading and drawing my way through art programs trying to suss out my feelings and thoughts on drawing instruction and piece together what I think might be the basics of a "solid" drawing program for K-12, or any sub-range within.

So far I really like the vintage D. R. L. Augsburg New Drawing  series and Bruce McIntyres The Drawing Textbook supplemented with Mark Kistlers Draw Squad. (or vice versa? I see Draw Squad kind of like a "revised 2nd ed." of The Drawing Textbook. Not truly it's own separate book/program.. )

McIntrye and Kistler advocate and enable 3D drawing from 1st grade, and gently and slowly teaches it starting with the 1st lessons, where Augsburg advocates 2D drawings until 4th grade.

I instinctively like the idea and goal of teaching children how to capture 3D in their drawings from the get go much better, because I feel that its making children aware of and attentive to proper perspective right from day one and teaching them to record more accurately and faithfully what they see and more importantly, it's teaching them the fundamental skills that they need to record what they see.

McIntyre/Kistler provide a very intelligently designed progression of drawing tutorials that do help you to see and draw, but it's still a list of drawing tutorials. Take these steps and you make this picture. The teacher has to put in energy and elbow grease to flesh it out into a full drawing curriculum (I feel.)

Meanwhile Augsburg includes form drawing, teaches observational drawing, placement/composition and walks you through how to do a lesson with your student(s) and includes some wonderful drawing exercises and explicitly includes drills to build skills incrementally and systematically.

As I work through the DrawingTextbook, I'm writing lesson plans and notes to try and pull the best of Augsburg into a program based on McIntyre/Kistlers progression and focused on 3D drawing,

I'm still very much "in development" with putting together my full thoughts on an ideal drawing program and philosophy, and am interested how others view and/or have tackled this matter in their own family.

If you agree that drawing should be taught, do you have an opinion on when it's "enough" drawing instruction? ie what milestones are you looking for before you'd let your student "drop" or "be done with" drawing as a subject? 
Do you have an opinion on introducing/teaching 2D vs 3D drawing?
How do your kids practice their drawing?
Do you think that drawing is essential or extra-curricular?
When do you like to start drawing instruction?
Do you think that traditional/2D animation should be included in the "drawing progression" or no?
What books helped inform your view on drawing education?

Any other comments or questions that you'd like to add to the discussion, please do. I'm interested to share ideas and learn from what others have learned or done.

 

[Lori D.]

I have no answers, but just a few thoughts:

- totally agree about the importance of developing art (and music, too, while we're at it!) -- both as a skill/ability, but also the "appreciation of"
- interesting random factoid: Mark Kistler was Bruce McIntyre's student -- which explains why they have similar approaches 😉 
- How to Teach Art to Children was a lovely little book that gave me encouragement to just experiment with doing art with color with my early elementary grades (I am non-artistic, and neither DS had a big interest in art, but we all enjoyed this one)
- Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Edwards) is a book I just got started with YEARS ago (and then life circumstances derailed me and I have yet to get back to it), but it really made me feel I *could* learn to see and draw *as an adult*

[Momto6inIN]

I don't even have the right vocabulary to talk about this intelligently, let alone the skill or expertise, but I do think you (general you) can improve your art skills with practice, although natural creative talent will obviously give you more motivation to do so. I am giving my not particularly artistic kids Create a Sketch 123 and although it takes a more technical approach than an artsy one, I like that it teaches them how to look at some 3D object and sketch it on a 2D page.

[mom2bee]

1 hour ago, Momto6inIN said:

I don't even have the right vocabulary to talk about this intelligently, let alone the skill or expertise, but I do think you (general you) can improve your art skills with practice, although natural creative talent will obviously give you more motivation to do so. I am giving my not particularly artistic kids Create a Sketch 123 and although it takes a more technical approach than an artsy one, I like that it teaches them how to look at some 3D object and sketch it on a 2D page.

I do like the Complete A Sketch: Vision Dexterity Focus book that I have, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. 

I think that a I would like to have students achieve a solid mix of perspective and technical drawing skills. (Hopefully I used those words correctly. I'm also lacking in the vocabulary of this subject.) 

The same way that a highschool graduate is expected to how to write a narrative, exposition or argument. I think I'd like to have a high school graduate who can draw skillfully in 2 or 3 "basic" styles, though what those styles would be is not yet known to me...

[RootAnn]

I'm reminded of another Hive member who feels this way about drawing & has written on it in the past. I can't remember for sure who it is & I'm afraid of getting it wrong, but it is a looong-time board member. I'll look for the posts later if no one else finds & links them first. (I could be wrong but I was thinking Nan in Mass believes drawing is a skill all her kids need & wrote on it at least once. It could have been someone else though.)

[mom2bee]

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 12:31 AM, Lori D. said:

I have no answers, but just a few thoughts:

- totally agree about the importance of developing art (and music, too, while we're at it!) -- both as a skill/ability, but also the "appreciation of"

@Lori D. thank you for chiming in. I really love hearing your thoughts on things. I'm adding Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to my list. I just want to clarify one thing. For this discussion, I'm specifically making a distinction between drawing and "art".

When I'm done with McIntyres' Drawing Textbook, I will probably move on to Drawing With Children, to learn more about the 'alphabet of shape' and how to use them to draw what you see.

[mom2bee]

What McIntyre writes on page 10 of The Drawing Textbook really resonated with me and aligned with what I felt, but couldn't articulate.

Quote

Many art supervisors and teachers maintain that there is no "right" and "wrong" in drawing. They feel that drawing is a matter of taste and that no confining rules can be laid down. They say that "rules" inhibit the child and suppress his "originality."

...In writing, thought it is a creative field, children are not expected to create how to write. They are given an alphabet and rules of spelling and grammar. They are told what is right and what is wrong and their papers are graded accordingly. They learn the right way. In a drawing program where there is no right and wrong and no rules, the children have nothing tangible to grasp and nothing to take home. They do not learn the right way; they do not learn the wrong way; they do not learn.

 

He goes on to write on page 11 about "Free Expression (creative self expression)" and "Appreciation" which are often the stated goals of a schools art program.

Quote

One of the main objectives of todays public school art program is "Free Expression (creative self expression)." We know that people who do not know how to draw cannot expresess themselves freely....The intended meaning of "Free Exression" is really expression free from rules (anything goes), but this kind of an objective leads nowhere. The other objective, "Appreciation" is something which must come from within and cannot be imposed from without. If the subject is understood--if the student knows how to draw--appreciation will follow, and will free expression....

I agree with his point about Free Expression being dependent upon an ability to draw. I liked to draw as a child, but I became discouraged by my inability to draw and my lack of improvement as I grew older and I all but gave up by the time that I was in my teens, though my desire to draw didn't leave, only my dissatisfaction with my inability to draw grew larger and larger.Various 'how to draw' books only seemed to make it worse, because I was copying pictures without ever getting better at my own ability to draw. I learned to draw cartoon characters from various "how to" tutorials, but  I never could extrapolate from drawing SpongeBob in that one pose, to any other pose. I could never put together a scene.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by mom2bee

[mom2bee]

I've only completed lesson 1 of The Drawing textbook, practicing regularly and already my drawing has improved some. Because I've learned that a foreshortened circle and square exists and are the "heart" of some shapes/images, I'm able to draw other things that use the foreshortened circle. (my foreshortened squares still need work).

I can not only draw a decent cake, but am able to draw food and soda cans, canisters, cups, bowls, vases, hats and ponds. Seeing that progress is motivating me to draw more. If there is a drawing that I can't seem to get, I check The Draw Squad (since it has step-by-step break down of all the drawings) and that usually helps me over the hump.

Square and rectangular things are getting easier also. I'm practicing by not only drawing old fashioned TVs and block tables that are prescribed in the book but also microwaves, stoves, and boxes--and there are a million different boxes--just look in your pantry or garage and look at all the slightly different boxes. The box that microwave popcorn comes in is different from say, a cereal box or the various amazon boxes that come in the mail. I feel that I can get better at drawing this shape and these things, because I'm learning to control the basic shape and how it fits on the page.

The more iterations of the box that I draw, the better I get at drawing the specific picture in The Drawing Textbook.

Edited July 28, 2019 by mom2bee

[goldenecho]

I love art...I love making art and viewing art and learning about art.

But when I was homeschooling I had trouble teaching art on a regular and consistent basis because my child wasn't very interested and I really struggled about MAKING my child do something which in my oppinion should be fun.   That doesn't mean I think it has to be fun to be useful.   I absolutely think its a useful skill that someone could utilize whether they "loved" it or not.   BUT, it's not an essential skill in the way that reading or writing or doing math is, so while I'll push my child to learn that I didn't feel the same way about pushing him to learn about art.   It just somehow felt wrong to MAKE someone do art.

My oldest however loves art and right now is learning 3D animation and spending hours on it in his free time.   Makes me happy!

Edited August 1, 2019 by goldenecho

[mom2bee]

2 hours ago, goldenecho said:

I love art...I love making art and viewing art and learning about art.

But when I was homeschooling I had trouble teaching art on a regular and consistent basis because my child wasn't very interested and I really struggled about MAKING my child do something which in my oppinion should be fun.   That doesn't mean I think it has to be fun to be useful.   I absolutely think its a useful skill that someone could utilize whether they "loved" it or not.   BUT, it's not an essential skill in the way that reading or writing or doing math is, so while I'll push my child to learn that I didn't feel the same way about pushing him to learn about art.   It just somehow felt wrong to MAKE someone do art.

My oldest however loves art and right now is learning 3D animation and spending hours on it in his free time.   Makes me happy!

I am specifically making to the effort to make and maintain the distinction between "drawing" and "art".

Drawing is the specific fundamental skill that I'm talking about in this thread and art is the broader subject, with many subtypes of art.

3D animation is not drawing.

Painting is not drawing.

Sculpting is not drawing.

Collage is not drawing.

Metal working and jewelry making are not drawing.

Drawing is drawing.

McIntyre specifically talks about "art" vs "drawing"  on p. 9 of The Drawing Textbook in How the Art Department Got Its Name.

[mathmarm]

Following with interest.

We also feel that drawing--the skill--should be something our kids learn (at least) to a basic level of competency. Because we want our kids to be able to draw well; "developing fluent drawing" is one of our focus-areas for 1st grade. We slotted Drawing as a daily subject for his 1st grade year and plan to use a combination of The Drawing Textbook and the vintage New Augsburg Drawing 1 program that someone (Hunter?) had linked some years back. We intend to do drawing as a daily until the end of 3rd grade and then re-evaluate. 

 

We feel comfortable starting drawing now because we've laid a foundation for it since tot-years. Because we knew we wanted to include drawing in a serious way as a part of our kids education, we did/do a lot of work from Tot-age through K to develop fine and gross motor skills, pencil control, hand-eye coordination and prewriting activities to develop both writing and drawing strokes.

For pre-writing, we followed the recommendation to emphasize the counter-clock wise stroke and taught him to pay attention to the lines, where as for drawing we've done various strokes, mazes and tracing exercises usually on blank, unlined paper. 

[mathmarm]

I decided on The Drawing Textbook because it seemed to teach actual drawing.

I'd started this thread a couple years ago and had no real luck.

I liked the 123 I Can... series that I saw because the summary said it teaches drawing principles and it seemed very appealing and doable for a Ker, but it was too limited with only 7 pictures (according to an Amazon review) and I knew that was enough for a start, but then we'd been stuck looking for something to continue and we needed to practice from those basic principles.

 

I saw Line Upon Line but its meant to be began by older children (12+) is very Christian and has only 40 or 50 exercises. When we found the Drawing Textbook I felt it was perfect: It taught legitimate drawing principles and techniques, included 200+ exercises, could be started by a 1st grader and has additional books in the series that we can progress to for further development so all in all it was a great starting place for $9.00. 

[mumto2]

So trying to answer your questions..........My kids are grown so this is what we did. Sort of random but I think I answer most things.

Yes, I agree drawing should be taught but preferred to wrap it into the overall curriculum starting at age 5 or so. When we started home ed I was following behind a lifelong friend whose children were older.  Basically I did what had worked for her in all subjects that I didn’t feel opinionated about.  Her children could draw really well, she had improved vastly (we were childhood neighbor’s) so I bought something her youngest loved doing, Draw Write Now.  We used those books a whole lot,  they fit well into different history and geography studies, but they weren’t a class.  Frequently we used the pictures on notecards and wrote Grandma a note about pilgrims or frogs....... What they were was a springboard to drawing and an activity my kids enjoyed.

We moved from there to a subscription to Nature Friend https://www.naturefriendmagazine.com/ and submitted the drawing each month for the contest, both were occasionally published which they loved.  We actually continued this when we moved to England with my mom’s help because Dd loved it.  (My mom was an amateur artist.) This method seemed to be perfect for us because of the variety of lessons which changed monthly because the lessons are designed by different people.  The equipment list was clear and the photographs were perfect to practice from if Dd wanted to do more.

We tried other art books etc but none really stuck.  At one point I have owned pretty much everything mentioned upthread......I wasn’t very theoretical about art classes.  We did, we did what looked right to our eyes.  I remember being asked how I taught color to Dd by a professional because apparently Dd was really incredible🤣at it.  Deer in headlights......we had just talked when we didn’t like how things looked.

Both kids did have fun with and finish The Big Yellow Book https://www.amazon.com/Big-Yellow-Drawing-Book/dp/0967591902.   Ed Emberley’s books were all hits at my house.  Did several varied art days out but none stuck......animation was a couple of those.  Not anyone’s interest.  Eventually Dd started group painting lessons with a professional artist and teacher.  The teacher still considers her to be one of her best ever at drawing animals and has used her work in several exhibits.

Because of my personal interest in textiles both dc’s have done a lot of fiber arts over the years.  Ds only turns out a project if he feels the need and they are small,   which he hasn’t for a long time.  Dd loves it all, currently finishing up a cross stitch.

Ds no longer draws and hasn’t since he was 11 or 12.   I allowed him to stop when he no longer enjoyed it and moved Dd into formal classes.

 Dd always did well in nature drawing contests and has been exhibited several times......enter all contests is my advice.  It’s funny this thread made me realize Dd now 21 hasn’t had her paper and pencils out for awhile.   Sort of sad...........I saw an incredible drawing at a local gallery the other day and I was thinking Dd could do similar for my wall, need to get her over to see it,

 

[drjuliadc]

Disclaimer:  I’ve never taught any of my children how to draw. They are in school and I just gush over every bit of drawing or other artwork they produce. None of it is very good at this point, but I’m sure they think they are little Michelangelos. 

They are only aged 3-8 and I don’t think I was good at that age either.

My mother was a professional illustrator.  Nothing she ever did was in 2D.  I have always been able to draw without any more instruction than what I got in public school. I have an opinion on 2D 3D. I think it is better to slowly use 3D from the beginning and not wait. I was taught perspective in 4th grade and was instantly good at it.  Everyone else was bad at it and I didn’t see them improving over the years. I think they all could have used more time developing it. I don’t remember when we were taught shading, etc...

In other words, maybe if a person has a genetic predisposition to be good at 3d drawing, they might be fine waiting until fourth grade, all others should work up to it starting early.

There are some similar neurological benefits to learning to draw as there are for learning and doing cursive, fluidity of thought, using the right brain and left brain concurrently, cementing in learning and knowledge, etc...