In Intermediate Drawing, I wanted to provide a bridge between Beginning Drawing, where students learn fundamentals, and Advanced Drawing, where students are expected to be largely self-directed. I wanted to accomplish three things: give a refresher of principles they’d learned in Beginning Drawing, provide a broad experience with media and techniques to give them more tools to draw from (pun intended), and then have the students submit a proposal and create a series of drawings to prepare them for an Advanced Drawing experience.

still life: Drawing MediA

This assignment exposed students to a variety of drawing media (graphite, charcoal, ink, contè crayon, pastels, and oil pastels) as they created sketches of two still lifes in the various media.

mixed media

This assignment introduced the students to working in mixed media by combining collage and drawing. Students first collaged on a gessoed panel, and then sanded it to create a textured foundation for a drawing of still life objects.

Geometric vs Organic

This assignment explored combining organic and geometric elements in a successful composition. Students sketched some plants in the student center, and then sketched geometric interiors of the library. Then, using frosted mylar, they traced and overlapped elements of their sketches to create their final drawing.

Expressive vs Analytical

For this assignment, we reviewed various historical approaches to abstraction. The students were then asked to select a premodern painting from art history (approximately 1450–1850). They then had to recreate that painting in two drawings: one in an expressive style, and the other in an analytical style.

final project: series

In the final project, students had to create a series of 4–6 drawings, based on a unified concept. They submitted a proposal detailing their concept, what media they wanted to use, what style they intended to use, and where might their work fit within the context of art history. We held weekly critiques to review progress and give feedback as their work progressed.