I LOVE making directed drawings with my students! My art skills leave a little to be desired. Let’s just say that one time I drew people on an anchor chart and when I showed it to my students they were so excited because I had drawn – ALIENS. Oh well, I’m obviously not the next Picasso, so when I found out about directed drawing I was all in!
Directed drawing allows you to give students specific art instructions one step at a time. The benefits of a directed drawing are:
- Increased listening stamina
- Following directions practice
- Refining art skills
- Learning new art techniques
- Exploring individuality within the same work
- Fine motor skill improvement
It is silent in my classroom when we are working on our directed drawings (hallelujah). Students don’t want to miss a single step so that their work turns out looking sharp and professional. It’s amazing to see how their art skills grow over the course of the year when we do directed drawing consistently. Today I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite place to find directed drawings!
Tips and Tricks
- Have the students start by using a pencil so they can erase mistakes.
- After the pencil drawing is complete, have them retrace the lines with a black crayon or marker for more definition.
- Have the students either color with crayons, markers, or watercolors.
- Make sure they color the backgrounds as well to really make the picture pop.
- Sometimes I have them cut out the directed drawing and put it on a textured background. (Check out the polar bear example at the end of this post).
YouTube
I teach directed drawing one of two ways. Either I model the work for my students, or I have them watch a YouTube video from someone who draws better than I do.
I increase the skill level on these as the year goes on. One quick tip, you will need to pause these videos as they are playing and give your students a chance to catch up with the artists. If you go too fast, students start to get anxiety and if you go to slow they get bored, it’s all about finding the right speed. Here are my favorite YouTube directed drawing channels:
Art for Kids
Bilingual Scrapbook
Easy Kids Drawings
Happy Drawings
Don’t forget to check out this blog post by the Brown Bag Teacher that talks about how to remove ads from YouTube:
Safely Using Videos in the Classroom
Blogs
Proud to Be Primary has some amazing directed drawing tutorials hosted on her website! She also has a great TPT product.
TPT Resources
I bought a couple of excellent TPT resources that I use with the students.
- First and Kinder Blue Skies – This one works great when you want to model the work on the whiteboard or overhead and have the students copy you. These make great bulletin boards!
- From the Pond – Great for an art center
- Krista Wallden – Creative Clips – Also great for centers. She includes writing prompts along with the drawings as well.
- Teaching in the Tongass – Directed drawing calendar – hello Mother’s Day present!
Amazon
I bought some of Ed Emberley’s books to use in an art center. The students loved looking through these books and finding things to draw!
- Animals
- Make a World
- Trucks and Trains
- Book of Faces
- Monsters and More Scary Stuff
- Thumbprint Drawing Book
I hope you enjoy doing these directed drawings as much as my students and I did!
Looking for some more art resources? Check out these posts:
