Drawing Guide

Drawing is an art form that anyone can do. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on.

The earliest human drawings are at least 73,000 years old! Clay was used to draw intersecting lines on a rock, which has been found in Blombos Cave in South Africa.

Teach your children about drawing using our handy topic guide!

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Teaching Ideas

Give children a natural object to sketch. Encourage them to look closely and notice the shapes of the object. This blog about drawing shells is full of good ideas.
Ask children to “draw the negative”, by drawing all the objects around a central object in a still life.
Read “The Dot” and use one of our teaching ideas related to it.
Give children a viewfinder (a small frame cut out of a piece of cardboard) and take them outside. Ask them to use their viewfinder to choose a view to sketch.
Give children a range of different drawing media, and ask them to sketch the same object or view in each one. Display the drawings side by side. Discuss what effect the different media have.

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Resources

The drawing challenges in our Listening Skills Pack are useful for improving listening and drawing skills.

Use our drawing banner on your display board.
Use one of our “Complete the Scene” resources as a stimulus for drawing.
Using an art grid can help children lay out their drawing.

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Drawing Facts

Drawing is making a picture using lines.
Historians believe that drawing was used as a form of communication before writing.
Drawing can be done with a range of different media: you can use pencils, charcoal, crayons, pastels, ink and many others!
The type of paper that you draw on has an effect on the work. Drawing on paper with a rough surface gives a different effect from paper with a smooth surface.
Most artists use drawing to work out their ideas, even if their finished work is in another medium, such as a painting or a sculpture.

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