Sites such as DrawSpace.com encourage free interaction between sketch artists of all levels and skills. This is a motiviating way for students to learn drawing.
When teachers explain and guide experience of each drawing method or technique in isolation, students fully understand the power and efficacy of each one alone. If we build up sets of these skills and provide ready reference to them the students become masters of a repertoire. As students learn to combine approaches to shading such as hatching, cross hatching, (and today Squirkling) they become versatile and authentic in their creative endeavours. Students can start their own Blog so that it acts as a personal library of references to the styles they learn.
A useful example of one such library is the Draw Space website of Brenda Hoddinott. Brenda has described her curriculum as being “designed to enhance various shading skills and the illustrated projects offer simple step-by-step instructions for rendering several enjoyable subjects.”
One of the techniques she describes is called Squirkling (it) “is an easy method of shading, in which randomly drawn curved lines (called squirkles) combine squiggles and scribbles with circles to create textured values.”
Brenda adds to her website regularly, offering free tutorials so that she can share her gifts and talents with others. Not only is this generous it is also a fine example to students, who, if they also share their work will learn many valuable digital skills.
It is motivating to become involved in this kind of sharing. Students have good reason to hone their skills. It is illuminating for the artist to experience explaining their work and the practices behind their work to an audience.
The process of sharing art practice can become another Literacy Booster – this is a win-win situation for all concerned. The interactive nature of arts based websites makes this a dynamic learning situation. Many of the online communities that grow up around this kind of endeavour turbo charge student learning.
You might also be interested in reading Drawing Technique - Cross Hatching Shading: One Element of Sketching and in the course Drawing101
