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How To Teach An Online Drawing Class

 

Since the pandemic began in early 2020, all my art-related classes have moved online. In terms of the subject of each class, the transition from in-person to online was seamless. Collage, handmade books, and the at-home sketchbook all worked out, mainly because the participants were making things with their own hands in their own space, while the teaching was demonstration followed by a friendly "show and tell."

One class I was skeptical about was the first-time drawing class, which I taught for the Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago). The challenge: if I asked the students to set up their own individual still lives to draw from, the class might end up as a seven-way free for all, and it might be impossible to make the instruction general enough to cover all the different arrangements of objects. On the other hand, if I used a still life in my space as the model, they would be drawing from a 2-d image on their screens, as opposed to the in-person class where you see things in three dimensions.

But to my delighted surprise...it worked!

Here are some of my thoughts about why:

As you can see in the first photo, I used good lighting to illuminate both my teaching station (the laptop) and the still life table. 

The ring light in front of the still life table has a camera holder, so that camera was part of the Zoom call and I could pin it so it filled the Zoom screen for everyone.

On day 1, I made sure to say that of course drawing from life was preferable, but that we could still learn a lot about proportion, line, tone, and volume.

I checked in every 20 minutes, asked people to hold up their drawings to their webcam, and gave them pointers about improving their drawings, if necessary.

Here is one of the drawings made by a participant, based on the still life in photo 2 above. I hope you'll agree that they did a great job!

So what made it work: a high speed internet connection, good Zoom skills, professional lighting, and (I hope) teaching experience.

But the chief reason, I think, is that I encouraged the students to have fun, and to take joy in the simple act of making marks with charcoal on paper, and in taking time away from the stress of the pandemic to sit in silence and use their hands and their eyes to make a drawing.

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