Drawing Inspired by Elements: Hands Moving Charcoal Dust

Drawing Inspired by Elements consists of four drawing exercises which are designed to help you to look again at some of our most elemental drawing materials and find inspiration in the elemental qualities of earth, water, and fire.

Charcoal dust

Charcoal is one of our oldest drawing materials – reach for a lump of burnt out wood from the ashes of a fire and make a mark on a nearby rock, and you are probably replicating the actions of people from the Chauvet Cave, southern France, over 30,000 years ago. In this assignment we are going to remind ourselves of the origins of drawing and mark making, and in so doing explore the kinds of marks charcoal likes to make, and how we can push and manipulate it 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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Developing Sketchbook Skills and Approaches – Introduction

Welcome to the Developing Sketchbook Skills and Approaches Online Course.

Introduction and Welcome!

How this Course will Work in terms of Delivery and Feedback

We want to really inspire you and help you create the time and space to invest in your sketchbook skills. In addition to the online assignments which we’ll be delivering each week for the next four weeks, this course provides you with the opportunity to upload images of the sketchbook work you make, and to get feedback from both artists and peers. We really hope you’ll take advantage of this facility – this is one of the most inspirational parts of the course.

The course consists of four online modules, which will contain an assignment in the form of text, illustration and video. You can access each module from the main Developing Sketchbook Skills & Approaches page on the AccessArt website. Once you’ve absorbed the information in each module, and had chance to try the activity for yourself, pls do upload up to 2 images of your work per assignment.

We have split the workshop delegates into 3 tutorial groups. When you upload images, pls choose a tutorial page from the links at the bottom of each assignment. Uploading images is easy – just have your images saved onto your computer (at a size no larger than 600 pixels wide), and then upload them via the comment box at the bottom of each tutorial group page.

All the content will stay online for a period of at least one year from the beginning of the course, allowing you plenty of time to take part. You can also print out a PDF version of each assignment by clicking the “print friendly” button at the bottom of each assignment page.

We hope you enjoy the course and that this is just the start of your sketchbook journey!

Back to main “Developing Sketchbook Skills and Approaches” page

Onto Assignment 1: “Taking Ownership of your Sketchbook“