Studio Practices
Ask the Experts, Episode Five: Drawing
In the fifth episode of Ask the Experts miniseries, Jenn Russell joins Tim for a discussion on drawing in the art room. Answering questions from podcast listeners and the art teacher community, they discuss their favorite drawing materials to teach, whether we can manage the mess of pastels, how to scaffold your instruction and curriculum, and so much more. Full episode transcript below.
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Transcript
Tim:
Thank you for joining us on Ask the Experts.
I’m your host, Tim Bogatz, and over the course of these episodes I will be talking with some art teaching experts and guiding us through a deep dive into a variety of different media. Each of the questions you hear today have been submitted by a member of our art teaching community.
No matter if you are a veteran teacher looking for new ideas, a brand new teacher looking for some guidance, or an experienced teacher who wants to up their game, I hope that the advice shared here about teaching each medium can help you.
As part of each episode, the show notes will include a plethora of resources to help your teaching if you want to learn even more.
Today’s episode is about drawing, and my guest will be Jenn Russell.
Jenn Russell, welcome to the show. To begin, can you give all of our listeners an introduction as to who you are, where you teach, what you do?
Jenn:
Yeah. Hi, y’all. My name’s Jenn Russell. I am a high school art teacher in North Texas, and I’ve been teaching for a whole eighth grader now, so that’s 13 years going on 14, which I find unreal. Let’s not talk about that, but I have taught drawing for the most part this whole entire time from middle school and then high school. I’ve taught both levels.
Tim:
All right, that is awesome. Your kids do absolutely incredible work, which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you for this show and just chat about all the things you do to get such great work from your kiddos, how you teach them and everything that goes along with that. Listener question here, the first one is from Ryan in Illinois, and he wants to know, What are the best materials in the classroom for graphite, charcoal, and colored pencils?”
Jenn:
Okay, so for us, I have this kit that our students receive when they come into our class. I know that it’s a little hard just in the times that we’re at, so typically I try to do it with class materials. We just have a class set of graphite pencils, and then we have a class set of colored pencils. I typically have enough in my budget to give. My class has their own set of pencils, just graphite pencils.
Then we share colored pencils just because that’s where we’re at at the current time, which is fine, but everybody gets their own sets of graphite pencils. That’s six pencils, everything from a 2H all the way to a 6B and an eraser and a handheld sharpener. That is the key, handheld sharper.
Tim:
I was just going to say, can we talk about handheld sharpeners?
Jenn:
I cannot. I do have an electric sharpener just for regular pencils, or they come with … I don’t want to be rude to Crayola, but just the regular matte pencils for their other classes ’cause I do have a homeroom and an advisory, so other kids live in my room. Just for the sake of having an electric sharpener in a classroom, which I feel like we should have, I have it, but as an art student, it’s a handheld sharpener, metal if we can afford it, if it comes in a kit plastic, that’ll do, but metal if we can get it, and that becomes the hottest commodity in class next to the eraser. Once it’s lost, the blame game starts like, “Who has my sharp …” And it just becomes this really big thing, but I have a jar up at the front if they find them. There’s always metal handheld sharpeners, just so that the electric sharpener eats your pencil and it doesn’t do a good job at sharpening them either.
Tim:
No, it doesn’t do a good job. Then the graphite, or God forbid you put a colored pencil in, they’re like, it’s going to break off and then nothing’s sharp and it’s barely running and it’s just the biggest pain.
Jenn:
I know, so I typically keep mine unplugged anyway. It’s just there for the looks and the vibes of a classroom, but yeah, no, we’re not doing that. If they really need to use it, they go and plug it in, but really it’s not there. Handheld sharpeners, I make everybody put their name on all their stuff. Elementary school style, put your name on every single pencil so that we know it belongs to you. I have a bucket of Washi tape, they can decorate their pencils with Washi tape and we move on. Then whatever I operate on, whatever is on sale. Where we’re at as an art teacher, just whatever’s on sale, whatever, I can get the most bulk. Typically, I’ve been doing a pretty good job the last couple of years we’ve been on Faber-Castell, so we’ve been doing okay. We’ve been doing okay. Then I try to just instill in them that we are not going to blame the tools for what we can do. That doesn’t matter. I don’t actually give them graphite pencils till they’ve learned to use their own regular HB pencil. That comes much later when they’re like, “Ugh, I could have gone darker and this is so much smoother.” I’m like, “Yeah, but you had to earn it.”
Tim:
Yeah, you got to learn first.
Jenn:
Yeah, we’re not going to do that. Same thing with color pencils. We don’t get to color pencils till the nice Prismacolor until A, they get much later in the curriculum. We’re looking at Drawing Two and up. Drawing Three, they get their own set because that’s pretty much all they’re working on or working with is just color pencil or graphite at that point. We were Prismacolor, I don’t want to say campus, we’re not football sponsors like that, but Prismacolor we do want to sponsor, go ahead, but shameless plug. Yeah, so we get what we can with what we have. I mean, my students have used all sorts of things and have created just wonders. We do that. Then just anything extra, just blenders also come much later because they try to blend too early without enough graphite, like just a paper blender, trillion or anything like that. Same thing with colorless blenders. They don’t get those either unless I feel confident that they can use it. Most of the times it’s a no. We’re just on the bare minimum here, making things happen with skill.
Tim:
No, I think that’s good. I would just say I’m pretty much aligned with everything that you’re talking about, everything that you have set out. I don’t have enough budget money to give everybody their own drawing pencils. We generally just have along the cabinet, wherever we keep the pencils, I just have a separate bucket for each of those. Our 2H pencils go in this bucket and our 2Bs go here and our 4Bs go here and you just put them back when you’re done. That works fine. Then as far as colored pencils, I just separate them by, we have three drawers. We have warm-colored pencils, we have cool-colored pencils, and then we have our neutrals and same thing. They generally use the Blick Studio markers or not markers. They generally use the Blick Student colored pencils or Studio colored pencils, I don’t remember which they’re called, which quality is good enough for everyone to get started. Then when we get advanced, then we dive into the Prismacolors. Again, I’m not going to be mad if Prismacolor wants to sponsor. If they want to send us some free materials, I’m open to it.
Jenn:
We’re PRing here, so just a cute little PR box would be lovely.
Tim:
Then I would just say, I believe Ryan asked about graphite, charcoal and colored pencils. With charcoal, I have Vine charcoal just for the experience, but we don’t really do much with it, just whatever. It’s a novelty for me. It’s something fun we’ll draw with for a day or two. Nothing that we do a lot with, but I do have a lot of compressed charcoal and we do some large scale works with that, and we can do some cool things. It’s not in my regular rotation of drawing materials, but I think any compressed charcoal is going to be fine for your students. I don’t have any strong preferences with that. Jen, any thoughts on charcoal?
Jenn:
We use charcoal mainly for still lives, just as we’re just a foundation in our Art One class, I like to get their hands on as much drawing material as possible so that they have experienced it and they know, “Hey, moving on, I can use this if I choose.” I have lots of Vine, but Vine goes away the quickest because it just breaks.
Tim:
It breaks, it crumbles, it disintegrates . . .
Jenn:
It falls on the floor and then it’s everywhere. I’m like, okay, so we have a ton of Vine and I have a lot of compressed charcoal that I’ve just collected throughout the years, and that again, becomes what I can find for the cheapest, because I used to put it in everybody’s kit and just, I forgot to preface this earlier, but my students do pay a lab fee to take my class. They do. We have dwindled it because, again, of where we’re at, but what they do get to keep just a lot comes from that. I used to put charcoal pencils in their kit, but it has had to go away. I’ve kept a lot of it, or if they leave it, I’ll just put it back into the drawers. Yeah, they do still life and a portrait with charcoal, and I don’t have a brand preference there. It is whatever works, just so that they get the experience, especially in the lower levels.
Tim:
I think we’re perfectly aligned with that, and that’s exactly how I treat it as well. Next question. This comes from Cheyenne in Ohio, and Cheyenne asks, “Where did you learn how to draw and how did you get good? What advice would you give students about getting good at drawing?” Cheyenne, you’re making assumptions that I’m actually good at drawing. I don’t know if that’s fair or not, but I will say I’m okay, but I definitely know how to teach it. Jen, I’d love to hear from you. How did you get good and what advice do you have for Cheyenne or for your students as far as improving your drawing skill?
Jenn:
Yeah, I am very lucky that I still have parents that encourage me to do whatever nonsense came to my head from a very early age. My dad still jokes that he still vacuums glitter up from the carpet, which now I do not allow glitter in my classroom. I’m very stringent on it.
Tim:
Same.
Jenn:
I can’t do it, so thanks mom and dad for that. I have been drawing since I was a kid. I mean, it started really early with I wanted to be a fashion designer, so I would draw clothes, and then I started drawing the people, the models that went in the clothes, and somehow the models always looked like me. Then I just started drawing faces, and then it went from faces to just eyes. Then I had a teacher tell me once that drawing eyes was a sign of going mad. For two weeks, it was my math teacher, she didn’t want me doodling on my paper. For a while I just thought that I was going a little insane. Then my art teacher was like, “No, she just wants you to stop drawing on the worksheets.” I was like, “Oh,” but I always took art. We have had art in the curriculum since we’re little, and I grew up in Houston, Texas, and then I started drawing cows for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which just passed, entering it into scholarship stuff in high school.
I tell my kids, “Because part of it is muscle memory, you have to keep drawing in order to get better and in order to keep your skills,” but drawing, they get a little jealous ’cause someone is innately good at drawing. I just was never that kid who could just automatically draw. I just liked the creative aspect of it. I literally had to learn and I had to keep practicing. That’s just how I continue. Sometimes I go for a while where I don’t draw because I do other art mediums, but then I come back to class and I’m like, “Oh yeah, I get to draw with the kids.” I always tell them, I’m like, “You guys are my practice while I’m teaching you to do this and y’all inspire me or whatever,” but I give my students the same advice that someone, well, someone, my art teacher who still teaches art, by the way, gave me, is just, “You just have to keep going, keep doing it, keep going. There is no,” in her words, “There’s just, you can’t suck at art. You just can’t.”
Comparing yourself to other people is not the way to go. It’s just whatever your style is, you have to find it and then you have to keep going. I show my kids, I still have sketch books from college. They’re, again, on the disintegrating path, and I’m sad. I’m so sad, but I show them and I’m like, even in college as a senior, the first time that I took figure drawing because my degree plan changed, and then it became mandatory. I’ve been trying to avoid it. I was like, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” That was one of the best classes I took, and then I took it again my last semester. I showed them my sketchbook from that class, and I’m like, “Look at where I started,” and this is me four years in the college. I’m like, “If I can learn at 22 to relearn everything you can learn now at 16, you totally can.” I just-
Tim:
Yeah, no, you said something about comparing themselves to others and the quote that I always use as kids in comparison is the thief of joy. I think that’s so important to you. Just kind of find your own personal style and do what you enjoy. As far as getting good, it is just about practice and it’s just about doing things. For me, I had what I did in high school, which I like to show my kids, and then I have what I did in college and like my students are so far ahead of where I was in high school. It’s not even funny.
Jenn:
Yeah. They are so great.
Tim:
Right, right. You all are doing some incredible stuff compared to what I was doing at age 16 or 17. Then, yeah, I got a little better in college, and then I finally got good when I was doing my Master’s degree.
That’s when I really, I think, came into my own as far as drawing goes. It’s okay if you’re 27 or 28 before you actually get good at stuff. I like to just let them know that it’s a journey. It takes a while. Just kind of experiment and explore and have fun with what you’re doing, but the more you practice and the better you do or the more often you do things, the better you’re going to get. That would be my advice is just practice, practice, practice, find what you enjoy, find what you’re comfortable with and kind of pursue that.
Jenn:
Yes.
Tim:
All right. Next question. This is from Tori in Colorado, and Tori asks, “Who is your favorite artist that works in pencil or colored pencil? I’m looking for someone that I can show my students.” Jen, a couple suggestions for artists that work in pencil or colored pencil.
Jenn:
Yes. It’s funny, ’cause we have the same person in mind. I try to show my students a range of artists, and I don’t know if this happens to anybody else, but my students the last few years have forgotten search engines. They don’t know how to search for anything on the internet. I literally pull it up and I’m like, “If I type in colored pencil artists, what pops up?” Then we talk about the people that pop up. Every year is different because art is ever evolving, but I for sure show them CJ Hendry. I mean, I can’t even describe that, right, but that’s the top tier where you are so photorealistic that you have to get up close and sometimes even then you’re like, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I’m like, “Okay, this is what you could do if we every day hit it hard, if we blend, how I teach you to blend, if you are just in the grind of it all.” Then I am really big on showing them kids that they would’ve known that I’ve had.
I also show them this year, I just did this, we just started this semester, so I just did this. This year we found a new artist, and I want to make sure that I pronounce this name correctly. Her name is Annie Pootoogook and she is an indigenous artist from Canada. We got the opportunity to learn all about her. I was like, “If she’s new to me, she’s definitely going to be new to you,” or maybe not because the internet again, ever evolving a vast wild west of a place. And they were like, wait, she’s in the galleries. And what makes her art so great? It’s so forward, it’s so frank. It is a narrative telling, but unlike CJ Hendry, that’s blended to perfection, Annie just takes a colored pencil and leaves it. There’s no blending of color. It is whatever blue came out of the box is the blue you’re going to get. You can see paper through it, which whoa for me, whoa for me. I’m like, “Y’all, there’s a message behind this, and if you have the message behind it, and if you have the will and you have something to say, you can art.”
I like to show them just a vast variety, including mixed media. Sometimes that’s a part of it. Just so that we learn a new person every time that partly comes, because sometimes I get bored, but I just expand the horizons. And most of what I’ve been doing the last couple of years is just trying to inspire and motivate. While CJ is just the goal, I’m like, “You can also do this and still be a producing artist.”
Tim:
For sure. There’s steps along the way. Not everybody can be at that pinnacle and there are other ways of doing things.
Jenn:
Yes, I’ve been really just, I love that we found her. Again, we do this search exercise together because I don’t have good, and I love that we found her together and it just became kind of, we were piecing this biography and where did she exhibit and where is she from? It was an awesome experience for my kids to see.
Tim:
Yeah, that’s very cool. No, I love that idea. That’s something I would encourage people to do also whenever they’re looking for new artists, explore along with your kids. It doesn’t have to be on you as a teacher to find everything. You can do that along with your kids and have some discussions along the way. I like that. Yeah, CJ Hendry is the one for me when it comes to colored pencils. With drawing, I love, we’ve been using graphite for centuries, and so it’s really fun to be like, Hey, here’s what Albrecht Durer and Da Vinci were doing with pencils way back when. Then we look at what artists are doing now.
One photorealistic graphite artists that I love is named Kent Bellows, and he’s from Omaha. I’m from Omaha, so my kids have that automatic connection. He died in 2005 want to say, but his work is absolutely incredible. If you’re looking for a photo realistic artists that will capture students’ attention, look up Kent Bellows, definitely recommend him and his work. I also love Vigia Selmans. She was working back in the seventies, but she’d do graphite drawings of just the waves of the ocean or the desert floor and these weird intricate things that are just spectacularly rendered. I think it’s one that captures kids’ attention as well. Yeah, Kent Bellows, Vigia Selmans would be my recommendations.
Jenn:
He’s got a good car series that I always show my kids because I’m like, “You like cars? Look at this.” Just anything to get to them really.
Tim:
Whatever connections you can find, pursue those. I think that’s worthwhile. Okay, next question. Coming from Texas, this is from Annette, and we’re going to dive in a little bit more. “What are your best tips and best tricks for drawing realistically?” We kind of mentioned just the idea of drawing realistically, “but what are the specific things that you teach specific techniques or skills or little tricks for helping drawings look a little bit more realistic?”
Jenn:
I’m going to need everybody to take a field trip to my classroom so we can have hands-on workshop and let’s go through my curriculum. I really, okay. I try to tell my kids that drawing realistically, it is wonderful, right? They all want to do it and then they get frustrated when they can’t out of the gate. I’m like, “That’s not the goal out the gate. You have to learn all these things before.” First, we need to manipulate our tools. I’ve said this I think on AOEU 107 times at some point, a value scale and just learning how to handle your pencil, value scale, lines, practicing literally just doodling or scumbling really with your pencil is invaluable. When I see kids just drawing it just for the first couple of weeks, I just want to see what you’re doing. I flip their paper over. I’m like, “I can read your paper on the other side. Your paper’s crying. You’re hurting her.”
Tim:
Relax a little bit.
Jenn:
“You’re hurting her,” right? I’m like, “Okay, let’s take it back a little bit.” Just learning the pressure points of the pencil, how you as a student, like your pencil. I am all value. I’m a heavy value person. I love my drawings dark and moody, and some of my kids aren’t like that, and that’s okay, but we just got to work on those skills of how you know far you can go on your pencil with your paper, a value scale, you need to learn the value. Same thing with colored pencil. Those are both interchangeable. Then we got to learn some things, right? What are we going to draw if we’re drawing people? You got to learn the parts of the face.
Tim:
Yes.
Jenn:
We got to jump through those. If we’re going to do the still life, I do still life with graphite and with charcoal. Now we got to do the viewfinder. We got to practice, we’ve got to do the half of the magazine face to match the values, take a picture of some rocks outside. We got to match those values. Their phones are great. They turn them black and white ’cause we don’t have to print out the pictures and copy them anymore, which is, wow, we’ve made it. Some of y’all won’t know ’cause y’all haven’t had that struggle, and I barely had the struggle, so I can’t really say much on that. We just have to understand the basic physical skills first, and then we can get into proportions and detail. I always tell the kids the number one thing that I tell them when they say they want to draw realistically, I’m like, “Okay, then your outlines have to go away.”
There’s no more outlines. There’s no more lines, period. I’m like, “Understand what that means because your coloring sheet of a drawing has to go away. There’s no more. You’re going to outline some hair. No, that makes your person a Lego person. We’re done here.” That’s hard, even for my high schoolers to kind of let go of. Those are things that we talk about at the very beginning of class, and we do lots of drills. I will never let go of drawing on the right side of the brain, never ever let that go. We do some exercises coming out of there and just switching their brain or drawing on the left side of the brain, switching their brain. It’s a practice of every day till this day, every day we draw and we shade every day.
Tim:
Yeah. Well, and I was just going to say, I use the Karate Kid analogy with my students, and very few of them have seen the movie, but those that have absolutely understand, when Daniel has to paint the fence and wax the car and he doesn’t understand why he’s doing those things, but then when it’s time to perform, he has those skills that he needs. That’s exactly why we’re doing contour drawing. It’s exactly why we’re doing value scales and still life studies and all of these little things that build up to actual eventual drawings. I like to just tell them about that. Again, even if they haven’t seen it, they kind of understand the concept. We’re just kind of building those skills and they will all come together in the end to allow you to create some good drawings. Other than that, I don’t think I have much to add. I feel like you have a lot of very good advice there.
Jenn:
I try my best. It’s an every year adjustment at this point. I will say that I’ve had a few, I’m at the point now where I’ve had two students that have graduated from college and are now teaching, and they’re like, “I hated it. I hated it so much, but still life boot camp and value boot camp, I now do with my kids.” I’m like, “I told you. I told you. Yes, we did it. We did it. That’s cool. That’s it.” They’re like, “Ah, it’s so good.” I’m like, “I know it hurts so good. It sucks, but it’s so great for you.”
Tim:
I was going to say, but once they start creating those really, really good works, it’s validating. See, that’s what we’ve been building up to. You don’t want to be like, “See, I told you,” but at the same time, absolutely you did.
Jenn:
Yeah, but remember when we were whining and crying about it, but look at your drawing now. It’s so beautiful.
Tim:
Exactly. Exactly. Next question, this comes from Danielle in New Jersey. Danielle asks, “Curricular strategies, where do you start? What does that lead into? What is the end goal? What are your goals for different classes?” I don’t know if we have time to dive into all of our classes, but Jen, can you just talk a little bit about progression of from course to course? What are you looking for from kids? How does one thing lead into another? What are some of your big curricular goals?
Jenn:
Basically, our program is built on, so Foundation Art One, and then you get to choose what area you go to. I have been doing drawing. For me, I want you to get a good sense of all of the media that you can. Then in level two, we’re going to get some skills, but I’m still going to let you do some fun things. We do a comic book, some just things that kind of build upon that where, okay, I’m not going to drill and kill you with the realistic no outline. Here’s some outlining, some illustration that you’re still used to and can build those illustration skills if that’s the chosen way that you’ve gone. Then really when we get to Drawing Three, it’s a lot of anatomy breakdown, lots of portraiture, just lots of mixed media exploration, and four is really tied to AP.
Four is almost like, okay, let’s start exploring some ideas. Then AP, we’re getting into just your portfolio. Hey, remember all these ideas that you had? Pick one maybe, and let’s explore it fully for your sustained investigation. For drawing, that’s how it works for me, and our classes are 18 weeks long, which I know is really hard for a lot of people to conceptualize. We switched from semester to semester, so I get whole new kids in January, and so that’s kind of how we break down. Within those 18 weeks, the first nine weeks is all of the drill stuff that we have to do, building your skills, getting your materials under control, getting your muscles, your hand under control. Then the second nine weeks is where all the fun big projects come. Here’s your reward for doing all of these things. I know that we, it was just the grind and you just smile and nodded, but here’s, you get to go free. Hey, your comic book. They’re like, okay, what are we doing? I’m like, “Make me a comic book, whatever.” “Can I make a graphic novel?” “Sure.” They kind of get creative freedom the last half of their class using the skills that we had in the first nine weeks.
Tim:
Yeah, I think that’s a pretty common setup people have where we have a foundations or an intro course, and then you kind of build from there. I would second that thought just of getting kids to explore as many different media as they can in that intro course, find some things that they enjoy, but also find some things that are going to develop those skills. You mentioned this earlier, but I feel like so many kids want to draw realistically, for better or for worse, that’s what they equate with success is being able to draw realistically. That’s what I teach them, and I think that’s important to kind of develop those skills. If you don’t need those skills later because exploring something else, that’s fine, but if you have them, you’re going to be so much better off. I try and do that as much as possible, like you said, build those skills and then kind of set them free after that.
My end goal, I guess, to answer Danielle’s question would be to have kids develop that personal style or like you said, find that topic that they really want to explore, something they want to do for their sustained investigation. Even if they don’t get to that point, if they can get past all of the cliches of drawing eyeballs and the super moody artworks that we see from sophomores all the time, then I’m very happy about that. If we can get them to explore the things that they’re interested in, bring some personal voice into the work, that’s kind of the end goal for me. I would say too, just ask your kids what are their goals? What do they want to explore? What do they want to do? If you have enough freedom in your curriculum, let them explore those things. I think that’s a good way that they can find some success.
Jenn:
Definitely. Definitely. I mean, I have maybe four projects that are consistent. Everything else changes, and then sometimes kids are like, “We didn’t get to do that.” I’m like, “You didn’t ask.” It just changes for me literally semester to semester.
Tim:
Yeah, I mean, as a teacher, I want to explore new things too. I get bored teaching the same things over and over again. Yeah, we continue to explore too, and I think that’s important. Okay, next question is from Niling in Minnesota, and she says, “Please tell me why I should have my students working with pastels. I hate them in every way.” Jen, do you have any nice things to say about pastels?
Jenn:
Okay, listen, I will say, okay, soft pastels and oil pastels. I know people feel some type of way about both of those things. I actually like them. I want to incorporate them more. In the last few years, I’ve had pastel kids and I love it. To me, one of the things about that I hear constantly about colored pencils from the kids and for myself, it takes forever.
Tim:
Well, it does. I mean, it does.
Jenn:
It does it, 100% does. I’m like, “I know, but think of the end result. It looks so good,” but pastels have the same effect without the grind of a color pencil, without the wear and tear of you hunched over four pencils in your hand and you’re just like top of your head is the only thing we can see, which I love that look in my classroom. I really, really do ’cause I’m me. I also love when they discover pastels and they discover they can manipulate them and still get a punch of color, really is for me, one of the selling points is just the vibrancy of it all. Then also, just how much ground you can cover in a short amount of time is unreal. Plus they get to explore different papers, which is hard sometimes. I’m like, “Why don’t you try a different tube to a paper?”
They’re like, “No, I’m going to stick to the …” Okay, and so they stick to what they know. Maybe in trying pastels, we get a different paper or a different tone of paper, which is another thing that I’m trying to get my kids to do, just not on white, guys. There’s so much we can do, y’all come on. With pastel, both soft and oil. Oil’s definitely sticky and harder to do that, but once they get it, they love it and they love just the hands-on of it. If you’re looking for something a little bit more physical, especially with oil, they love the blending, they want to do that with graphite and smudge it. I have a megaphone in my room and I sound the siren if I see it. Well, I’m the most annoying and embarrassing teacher of all time. I also have a karaoke mic that I hop on and I’m like, “I saw smudging.” I start singing weird things, but oil pastel specifically, I mean, soft pastels, you want to be a little bit more refined with the blending [inaudible 00:36:06], but oil pastel, finger blending is game.
Tim:
Smear away.
Jenn:
Yeah, it’s game and they love it. I try to at least, especially in Art One and Drawing Two, sneak in some oil pastels, like pop art-type, Warhol-style so that the realism doesn’t get in the way. The skin tone blending or the color matching doesn’t get in the way so that they can be a little bit more free with it. I secretly love them, and now it’s not a secret. I admitted it.
Tim:
Fair. Fair. Yeah. I would say I love that freedom as well. Just sort of the chance to do something really expressive, the chance to experiment, like you talked about with different types of paper, different sizes, and really you can go for it with pastels, and I really like that fact. I love the texture of them. I love the way they blend. I love the vibrant color, all of those things you talked about. I know and I can commiserate with Niling here, cleaning them up when they get ground into the floor is a struggle. That is an art teacher nightmare for sure.
Honestly, up until that point, they’re actually easy to clean. Like soft pastels. I know they have the reputation of being a giant mess, but the period’s over, you take your paper and dump everything, all the powder into the trash, you get a wet paper towel and it takes 10 seconds to clean up your table.
Jenn:
It’s not that bad.
Tim:
I know they have a reputation because when they get smashed, it is a nightmare, but they’re not that bad. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I love any pastels, but I don’t know that they deserve the poor reputation they have amongst art teachers. If you’re listening to this, this is your sign, this encouragement to give them a try.
Jenn:
Yes.
Tim:
Okay. Final question for you, Jen. This is from James in Tennessee, and James says, “How do you get students to work on a piece for a long amount of time?” This is perfect. Going back to our colored pencil discussion. “My kids give up so quickly they can’t work for a solid 90 minutes, and they definitely don’t want to stay with the same project for two or three weeks at a time.” Oh, man. I feel like especially post COVID, this is one of the biggest struggles that our teachers are having. Jen, I would love any advice that you have or just any stories from what you’re seeing when it comes to kids and being able to work on something for an extended period of time.
Jenn:
Yes. I talked about motivation a little bit earlier. That is, I have been a cheerleader now since COVID, and it’s definitely the hardest part of my job. I cheered in high school and college. I don’t want to do it anymore, but it just is now the new normal, which is okay, I get where we’re at. I added that hat onto the billion other hats we wear. I also have a 90-minute class, and sometimes our big projects do run two weeks, and it is a grind for them. I try to break up the class so that they’re not working the whole 90 minutes.
The first 10 to 15 minutes, I will either do they have a warmup they need to do, their hand drawing in their sketchbook, or sometimes we just talk about pop culture, something art-related, or maybe not. If it’s a global phenomenon, we’re trying to find someone that hasn’t been seen in a little bit, who knows, and maybe they knew who that person was and maybe they didn’t. You got to go through the family line there, but just something that welcomes them into class and gets them in a good spirit and a good mood to get going. Then I’m like, “Okay, everybody grab your stuff and let’s go.” I break it up into chunks. I’m like, “Okay, 30, 40 minutes,” that’s fine. It’s picture time. I’m trying to get my students into the habit of documenting their work and their projects.
Tim:
I like it.
Jenn:
I’m like, “Okay, it’s picture time.” We take a picture at the beginning of class, we take a picture in the middle of class, and at the end of class, I’m like, “You should have a camera roll, specifically an album for your art.” Especially, this is a good habit to start if we’re going to go to AP, which is always the goal for every single one of my kids, whether they make it or not, that’s a different story. That’s the goal for every single one of my kids. Either that or in the middle of class, I’m like, “Okay, put your pencils down, everybody up, push your chairs in and we’re walking. I want you to see what everybody else has done in this time.” If Johnny Appleseed hasn’t done anything, ’cause he is having a day, and that resulted in, we’re playing games on our device all class.
Okay, you don’t have anything to show for it. Maybe we’ll get that motivation going there, or, “Hey, that’s really good. How did you do that? Show me how you did that.” That’s the best thing that comes out of these impromptu gallery walks, like, “Hey, how did you do that with your pencil? Then they end up teaching each other or like, “Hey, come show me,” and they’re like, “I don’t know,” or I’ve had kids suggest that they do a time-lapse. They’re like, “Dude, your stuff is so good. You should time-lapse that.” Then they set it up and they’ll do it. They’re all about posting and social media and all that. I also encourage them to post once a week. It could be on their Finsta or whatever they call it. It could be on their TikTok, it could be on their art, Instagram. I don’t care. Post it somewhere so that you get this idea of being not necessarily a producing artist, but almost, right, so that something holds you accountable.
Tim:
I was just going to say, that’s sort of an outside version of accountability, which I think is important.
Jenn:
It was, and so that’s how I break up my class, and we have to take breaks because if not, we’re not going to make it. Then sometimes I do two projects concurrently, so they’re running at the same time. I’m like, “Okay, today’s going to be an eye study day, and we’re going to put our graphic novels aside for just today,” so that they don’t get burned out on the same thing.
Tim:
Yeah, I think all of that is great advice. I would just say I do a lot of the same things. I work a little bit of art history in there as we can. I will do some discussions or critique sometimes a little more formal than just like, “Hey, how did you do this? Or, Hey, I really like what you have going on,” because I think those things can be good. Then just the idea of bringing in other lessons I think is worthwhile. I always try to have multiple things for my kids to work on. Whether that be a weekly sketchbook assignment, a second assignment, a design challenge, or a drawing challenge, just anything that, if they’re not feeling the assignment that day, there is an alternative to what they can do. Whether they actually follow through and go for that alternative is a different story, but you got to make it available.
Yeah, I think that’s important is just to give them options both that you are leading, whether that be extra instruction, extra discussion, whatever, or just things that they can kind of explore on their own. Just give them some other options. I think that can solve a lot of those problems. We’re never going to solve them all. We’re never going to get our kids working as much as we would like them to, but if you can give them that option, then I think it’s beneficial for everybody. All right, so many awesome questions. Jen, this has been a great discussion. Thank you for answering everything and thank you for all of this amazing advice.
Jenn:
Yeah, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Tim:
Thank you to Jenn for her expertise and for answering all of our questions.
If you want to continue your learning, I want to highlight a few of the links that you can find in the show notes.
We will link to four PRO Packs–a couple with basic ideas (think the Building Blocks of Drawing), and some more advanced ideas, along the lines of Rethinking your Drawing Curriculum. each of these PRO Packs have so much important knowledge, ideas for your art room and how to teach those ideas, and some great resources that you can use and some that your students can use. A great place to dive deep on some ideas about teaching drawing.
We are also linking to 2 collections from AOEU’s FLEX Curriculum. One is on one day drawing lessons, and the other is about experimenting with portraiture. There are some good lessons in there, and These collections also include videos, planning sheets, assessments, other resources for students, artist bios, career cards, and so much more.
We also have some additional resources that you might find worthwhile, including some magazine articles and podcast episodes with Jenn and other guests.
Thank you for listening to Ask the Experts.
The show is produced, edited, and engineered by me, Tim Bogatz, and is part of the Art of Education University podcast network.
Stick with us through all of our episodes as we explore photography, ceramics, painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, and more. Thank you for listening!
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.
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