AccessArt has worked for many years to inspire and enable drawing skills across all ages and as part of this process, we are keen to support the teaching of visual arts learning in schools and institutions. Our aim is to help feed the creativity and build the confidence of pupils and students by offering resources that support the development of their drawing skills and increase their knowledge and understanding of drawing materials.
- If you are a teacher or educator, you’ll find our collection of resources will help you plan art lessons and provide ideas, inspiration and guidance.
- If you are an artist working in education, a facilitator or a museum and gallery education officer, you’ll find the resources will help you inspire and develop your practice.
All of the beautifully illustrated articles on our site are based upon tried and tested artist-led or artist-inspired teaching and have been designed to enable you to replicate the activities with your pupils and students – from five years to graduates.
The activities range from quick warm-up exercises to projects that help the learner work towards making more resolved drawings. The activities encourage them to consider what it means to make a drawing, offering ideas for both 2D and 3D drawings. The projects and exercises also challenge students to explore an exciting range of materials to increase their mark making ability and expand their personal drawing language. This enables them to make positive and informed decisions about the most appropriate materials and methods by which they can realise their own creative ideas.
The act of drawing can be a sole occupation or a collaborative one and we provide drawing exercises that enable a student to explore drawing individually as well as projects that encourage the student group to build drawings together and learn from each other.
AccessArt’s efforts in promoting drawing skills have been recognised by The Campaign for Drawing who awarded AccessArt and the Cambridge School of Art at Anglia Ruskin University the prestigious Nadfas Drawing Inspiration Award for a series of drawing workshops which ‘most successfully engaged young people in creative activities’.
See a selection of our drawing resources at the bottom of the page.
Curriculum Planning
AccessArt can also support teachers in Visual Arts Planning and National Curriculum Art Planning for KS1 & 2. You can send us a request for help with a particular topic or theme and we will suggest a selection of creative resources for you from our website, suitable for primary or secondary teaching.
Introducing Sketchbooks
AccessArt has a long history of working with sketchbooks in schools and together with a number of ‘sketchbook advocates’, we ran a highly successful Esmee-Fairbairn funded project called Sketchbooks in Schools to encourage sketchbook use by pupils.
We have a range of exciting resources that can be used to introduce students to keeping a sketchbook, develop their sketchbook skills and embed their use. There are projects to encourage students to make their own sketchbooks and to explore what a sketchbook might look like and they can learn from examples of sketchbooks of artists and designers posted on our website.