30 TEACHERs COLLEGE COLUmbIA UNIvERsITy
The bigger Picture of Drawing:
A New Curriculum, A New Pedagogy
Drawing and mapping suits students of graphic
design, illustration, cartography, web-design or
engineering. Approaches include researching maps,
diagrams, plans, architectural drawings, ordnance
survey maps and instructional guides. The students’
drawings could explore distance, space, and 3D
form or illustrate or describe a journey or activity,
or direct a viewer or audience
Drawing and reproduction explores creativ-
ity through study of others’ drawings and methods.
Students are asked to recreate a drawing by identify-
ing the individual gestures that the drawing is com-
posed from. Students are encouraged to interrogate
others’ drawings from the world of comic books,
mapping, fashion design, artists’ and designers’
drawings, or architectural plans and are encouraged
to not merely copy.
Drawing surfaces and texture enhances
analysis and drawing skills, and develops critical
reflection on the possibilities of surface. The unit
particularly suits students of fashion, textiles, cos-
tume design and interpretation, interior design-
ers and cartographers. Students could forensically
investigate a range of surfaces including observed,
found, natural, synthetic, digital and photographic.
Drawing into three dimensions develops under-
standing in how a drawing can move from two
dimensions to three dimensions. It supports students
of three dimensional design, sculpture, set design,
costume design, fashion, engineering, architecture
and furniture. Investigations into thinking through
drawing and making, and the use of three-dimen-
sional materials as drawing media are encouraged.
To form a qualification a centre can select 2 units
for the qualification, Drawing Award, or select 4
units for the qualification of Drawing Certificate.
This level of choice supports individual centres and
courses in aligning the qualifications to their stu-
dents needs.
In academic year 2010/11, the qualifications
first year of operation, a total of 3,562 students
were enrolled across the UK. This academic year,
2011/12, we now have 4,942 enrolled, with the
qualifications being offered in 6th form colleges,
schools and further education colleges. It is also
being offered as a stand-alone full-cost qualification
in some centres. The rising take up across the UK
I think illustrates the appetite for drawing, and the
success of the qualification in delivering a drawing
experience.
Pilot of the qualification at
Wimbledon College of Art
I will now discuss a pre-validation pilot project
undertaken at Wimbledon College of Art on the
foundation course Theatre Design pathway. This
project allowed us to investigate pedagogical ideas
and explore staff and students’ responses to the
units and project.
The Theatre Design Pathway chose Drawing
with Light. This project took the students on a the-
atrical journey initiated by narrative and scenario.
The project started with a lecture exploring how
light and word has been used in history to empha-
sise dramatic content of subject or scenario. Listen-
ing to short passages of text, students responded
with mark making and invented imagery to reflect
the text. These were developed into 3 dimensional
interpretations. The 3D sketches were then cre-
atively lit, to produce dramatic shadows that were
then drawn and photographed in order to create a
theatrical visual narrative. Students explored exper-
imental drawing with translucent mixed media,
which then in turn allowed them to produce draw-
ings with light and use larger architectural spaces.
The project illustrated how the word and personal
responses can be translated through drawing using
light, scale, and media. Using these translucent
drawings, the students were able to investigate
larger, actual spaces and the dramatic theatrical
potential of light and mark making.MA Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art
As part of a key academic review, the develop-
ment of an MA Drawing Course was initiated by
Wimbledon College of Art during 2010, with a tar-
get start date of October 2011. At Wimbledon, we
were clear that this new course should be a cross-
disciplinary drawing course that would also develop
research initiatives across the STEM (science, tech-
nology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.
In February of this year, and to signal the aims
and rationale of the new MA Drawing Course,
Wimbledon College of Art hosted an exhibition of
drawing from across a range of disciplines. Foot-
prints Across Fresh Snow: drawing and mark mak-
ing across disciplines was selected by myself, Kelly
Chorpening, Stephen Farthing, Trevor Hewett
and Michael Pavelka and explored connections
between practitioners and subjects through draw-
ing. The drawings on show, made by practitioners
from a range of disciplines, represented heart