Teaching Drawing 101

Teaching drawing for design students is a lot of fun but also a challenge. The students normally come to university with a close vision of what makes a good drawing. They tend to admire naturalistic perfection and are frustrated when their skills doesn’t match their expectation. But frustration is in most cases the enemy of a good drawing as it inhibits joy and curiosity.

My approach to drawing is to open their view of what a good drawing is. Since the invention of photography, drawing lost its purpose and the monopoly of showing us the world as it is. It overcame naturalism and serves other purposes than representation of the perceived world. In class we learn about the works of many different artists and compare their style, vision and artistic approach. The first steps to drawing is losening up, getting rid of false expections and enjoy the moment of a drawing coming to life on a piece of paper.