This exercise in drawing is designed to help learners focus on the line. The idea here is to create a drawing where you never lift your chosen drawing medium from the paper. Many teachers like to use pen for this exercise as this will help resist the urge of erasing mistakes. For those who have never done this exercise before, they may find their drawings odd and “imperfect” but that is what makes candidates look more closely. Learners should focus on looking at what they are drawing as much as the drawing itself and should not stop moving their hand when you look up. Create a ‘still life’ as the subject matter and you should expect to see distinct improvements from the first to second and third drawings.

The quality of tonal shading is often overlooked by learners and the following activity should help them improve in this respect. Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

Use simple shaped objects such as cylinders, balls or cubes and ensure that a strong light source is given from one side. The pencil shading exercise explored is called ‘graduated tone’. This is a drawing technique which can be used to create a strong sense of space and form. It is a very useful skill to develop for both pencil and colour pencil drawings.

1. Use a darker grade (B or 2B) of pencil for your shading. Lighter grades (H, 2H etc.) will not give enough depth to your darkest tones.

2. Just start by shading the area you wish to be dark and slowly build up the tone. As you work towards the light, gradually ease the pressure on your pencil until you can no longer see the mark it makes.

3. You then patiently repeat this process several times, building up a depth to the shading, adjusting any irregular areas and trying to keep the tonal changes as smooth as possible until you achieve the variation and intensity of tone that you desire.

Textures range from the smoothest polished mirror to the roughest mountain range as seen from an airplane. The term is often misused to refer only to rough surfaces but this is not correct. All surfaces have texture. Sometimes the surface will show patterns. Whatever the surface, learners can show accurately the texture, surface or pattern. Using sliced mushrooms, tomatoes or peppers use shadow, pattern and texture instead of line to delineate shapes.

Introduction to drawing as a tool to conceive, explore and generate design ideas. Emphasis is placed on concept sketching, perspective drawing, and rendering techniques as tools to communicate important information about conceptual concepts in the creation of design projects. Taking an everyday object, produce line drawings from different viewpoints that investigate the graphic and design potential when generating new or conceptual ideas.

Introduction to technical drawing as a skill to communicate precise characteristics of a represented subject as it pertains to Industrial, Interior and Visual Communication Design. Emphasis is placed on measured drawings as a tool to communicate precise information about man-made subjects.

Use the links to the right to produce worksheets that explain one and two point perspective.

Using the front page of a newspaper or magazine, create new or modify the existing text/font. Draw big, so there’s plenty of detail to capture, and make sure your characters are all the appropriate height (learners might want to add ruled lines in pencil to their paper before they begin). Scan your beautiful work into Photoshop, and then turn your image into a bitmap (black and white—no shades of grey). Once you have all of your fonts in Photoshop, you can begin the process of editing your font towards completion of your own work.

Step one

Decide what you want to draw.

Step two

Pick your location and light source. If you just want to draw a smiley face, then a blank wall and a laser pointer are fine. If you want to draw an angel hovering over a guy sleeping on a park bench, you’ll need a park, some helpers, and a bright flashlight.

Step three

Set up your camera on the tripod and check ambient light readings. It’s ok if the ambient light is a bit brighter than a “normal” exposure in these images but you don’t want it to overwhelm the drawing. Set your shutter speed for the time you need to make your drawing and check the light situation again. You’ll need to change your ISO and aperture to get a reasonable exposure.

Step four

Test run. Get everyone in place and for a test run. If you need more time, change your shutter speed. You may also need to adjust your other settings to get the exposure you want or even change light sources for more or less light.

Step five

Capture the image and create your own light drawing.

Find a location with some ambient light. Find an object that is less “hit” by that light, usually in the foreground. Learners can use the ambient light to capture the background, while drawing on the foreground object with light. Using this system of light drawing, photographers create interesting effects – often showing a surreal foreground and a “normal” background. Furthermore the white balance (tonal balance) will be different on the ambient and light drawn areas.

Begin with a drawing of a piece of fruit e.g. a halved kiwi. Highlight a copy of the drawing with a dark pen and enlarge on the photocopier if necessary. Place the design under a piece of stretched silk on a frame. Trace the design using silk painting gutta (a liner that prevents the silk paints from spreading all over the silk). Ensure that each drawn line has no gaps else the dye will leak out. Allow to dry. Using silk painting dyes paint the design.

Explore adding salt to create speckled effect.

Beginning with a similar stimulus like fruit, flowers or shells, develop a drawing in a variety of textiles. Choose a suitable background material and cut out basic shapes in appropriate contrasting materials, using templates if required. Join the cut shapes onto the background using a combination of PVA to initially fix the pieces and then decorative stitching on top. Add details like buttons, braids etc. to adorn design.

Whilst sewing, it is easier to handle if the material is fixed to a frame.

A croquis is the basic drawing of a model pose that you can trace over and over again while sketching your fashion ideas. You can find croquis to use online or in books, or you can create your own. Print a photo that has a good pose and body form that you want to design for. Using window light, trace the basic body shape on a new piece of paper. Use your new croquis, by tracing over it with a fresh sheet of paper, to sketch your own new designs over and over again.

There are many CAD programs, such as AutoCAD, Rhinoceros 3D and TurboCAD, and many of them use similar commands to execute the three-dimensional operations. This activity will provide the commands for AutoCAD.

Open AutoCAD and select “New” in the “File” menu to open a new project file.

• Draw a closed two-dimensional form on the “X, Y Plane” of your CAD application using the “Polyline,” “Rectangle” or “Polygon” tools or type these commands into the command line. Use the “@X, Y” command to define the dimensions of your shape. The notation “@” represents the relative distance to the shape’s origin, “X” is the horizontal distance from the shape’s origin and “Y” is the depth dimension from the shape’s origin. Press the “Escape” button to exit the command.
• Extrude the two-dimensional form using the “Extrude” tool or by typing “Extrude” in the command line. You will need to provide a height using the mouse, or typing in the “Z” or “height, distance.” Press the “Enter” button to complete the extrusion.
• View your extrusion using the “Orbit” button or type “Orbit” into the command line. You can pan, spin, zoom and rotate with “Orbit.Continue using the drawing, extrusion and orbit commands to assemble a CAD model.

Type “Move” or use the “Move” button to change the position of objects, relative to one another, in your CAD drawing. Type “@X,Y,Z” where “@” shows the position changed relative to the starting point, “X” is the horizontal distance, “Y” is the distance of depth and “Z” is the vertical distance.

Type “3DRotate” or use the “3D Rotate” button to rotate the object relative to the origin. You will need to establish an axis of rotation and the degree of rotation.

Often learners in three dimensional design need to make a 3D/clay sketch or maquette to see how the idea will look from all sides.

Produce a three dimensional maquette based on a shoe or boot. Using card glue and tape the piece should be a quarter of the actual size of the shoe or boot.

This specialism requires learners to explore research and analyse techniques and art, craft and design practices, developing their skills, knowledge and understanding in practical and written elements specific to Critical and Contextual Study. It is anticipated that the visual and textual analysis of art, craft and design work undertaken will be the central element in this specialism. Learners should show how they can demonstrate critical and contextual skills through researching, analysing and building understanding of one or more areas of study. An important focus is on the learners’ ability to use written and visual analysis when conducting research.

Learners should demonstrate their drawing skills are understood and developed as appropriate to the ways of recording and communicating intentions, ideas and emotions in the context if Critical and Contextual Studies. In this respect, drawing skill will be appropriate to the specialism(s) studied.

Many galleries, museums, and libraries offer a range of free-of-charge resources to teachers and learners, both online and face to face.