By Andrea Butler

Inventing your own mark making tools is a great way to bring together making and drawing.

You can experiment with lots of different objects and materials to make drawing tools. It’s a creative challenge to attach the object or material to the handle and the marks you make will be influenced by how much ink your tool will hold – fabric will absorb a lot more ink than say, a piece of dried seaweed. Each tool will have its own character and unique set of marks and of course, you can make your tools as decorative as you like, painting the handles or binding them with tape, fabric or thread to personalise them even further.

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AccessArt is a UK Charity and we believe everyone has the right to be creative. AccessArt provides inspiration to help us all reach our creative potential.

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Pathway: Expressive Painting

This is featured in the ‘Expressive Painting’ pathway

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Pathway: Mixed Media Land and city scapes

This is featured in the ‘Mixed Media Land and City Scapes’ pathway

Talking Points: Kittie Jones

Talking Points: Vanessa Gardiner

Talking Points: The Shoreditch Sketcher

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Pathway: Making Monotypes

This is featured in the ‘Making Monotypes’ pathway

Talking points: What is a monotype?

Talking Points: Kevork Mourad

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Pathway: Simple Printmaking

Featured in the ‘Simple Printmaking’ pathway

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Pathway: Exploring the world though mono print

This is featured in the ‘Exploring The World Through Mono print’ pathway

Talking Points: Xgaoc’o Xare

Video enabled monoprint resources

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Pathway: Typography and Maps

This is featured in the ‘Typography and Maps’ pathway

Talking Points: What is typography?

Talking Points: Louise Fili

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Pathway: working with shape and colour

This is featured in the ‘Working with Shape and Colour’ pathway

Pathway: Print & Activism

This is featured in the ‘Print & Activism’ pathway

Talking Points: What is a Screenprint?

What We Like About This Resource….

“The research phase of a creative project can be presented in many different ways, and can even be an art form in itself. Here, Tatyana demonstrates how her sketchbooks became a medium through which she expressed her thoughts, refined her ideas and explored materials. We believe sketchbooks to be a powerful tool for children to take ownership of their ideas and travel on their own creative journey, without necessarily knowing the destination. Take a look at our sketchbook journey for more sketchbook inspiration” – Rachel, AccessArt.

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Sketchbooks and Thinking Skills

Sketchbooks for Designers – an Introduction for Children

Using Sketchbooks to Take Ownership of Ideas

What We Love About This Resource…

So often, we hear talk of the distinction between science and art, and no more so when teenagers proceed through their education and they are encouraged to choose one route or another. In reality, creative thinking helps scientific understanding and a scientific approach can inform and inspire art.

It’s so refreshing to read and see Merlin’s experience and understand how she works between these two areas – in her words “mixing subjects, and seeing how they work and intersect is where inventions take place!“

We also love the way her work embraces the felt world of being human, as well as the known world. We’re sure many young people will find Merlin’s work of interest and reassuring when they are pressured to choose “art or science“.

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Drawing for Learning

Dr Fay Penrose, PhD, PGCert, SFHEA, BA(Hons) Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Anatomy and Head of First Year in Veterinary Science, University of Liverpool, explores why visual and tactile literacy and manual dexterity skills are important in the STEM subjects in higher education.

Drawing as a Way of Understanding

Fay Penrose, Lecturer in Veterinary Biology at The Veterinary School at University of Liverpool, who shares her work in introducing drawing as a way of checking understanding of complex subjects. This methodology would be very transferable to a number of subject areas in schools.

Drawing as a Way of Understanding

Resource by Andrea Butler sharing her process of making drawings whilst walking. “I wanted to develop a way of drawing that captured my sensory and visual experiences as I moved through the landscape.”

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