ArtPlantae Today

For this week’s teaching and learning column, Kellie and I contemplate how to help people see the value of drawing as a learning tool.

In the weekly teaching and learning column I write, I occasionally bring attention to research or articles that call for drawing to be taught as a fundamental skill, much the same way reading, writing and arithmetic are taught as core life skills.

In the 1880’s, T.R. Ablett said that public perception about drawing needed to be raised so the drawing could be accepted as one of the core fundamentals. As someone who was drawing first in a profession not affiliated with the arts (i.e., landscape design), how might we help people see the value of drawing as a learning tool and life skill in professions other than what people consider traditional art?


Kellie: This is a very interesting question, as I feel that drawing and art skills are not valued enough in our society. How I feel would be a great way to help people see the value of drawing is to bring more awareness into our public schooling, from an early age. Many schools do offer art classes, but not as a requirement. In many of the art classes, they do not teach all the different careers options that the skill of drawing can be useful in, including landscape design. I had no idea that landscape design was even an option for a career in high school, and for that matter any horticulture related field. This was something I learned on my own outside of school. Art and creativity are very important for any career as I feel a creative mind brings more diversity and new thinking to any job. I hope drawing becomes more of a standard teaching practice with other life skills such as reading and writing.

Artists, naturalists and teachers…how can we help the public value drawing as a learning tool?

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Drawing teaches the arithmetic of space, as figuring teaches the arithmetic of numbers.

— T. R Ablett, Esq.

How do you begin to use drawing as a learning tool in a classroom with 35 students?

Here is an approach that may be worth trying in today’s busy classroom setting.

What follows is a format proposed by T.R. Ablett, Esq. as it was explained in the January 1888 issue of the journal Science. The article, The Teaching of Drawing, is about a paper Ablett presented at the College of Preceptors. In this paper, Ablett argues that drawing must become a subject every student learns, regardless of their future vocation. He argues that incorporating drawing across the curriculum has many advantages, namely:

• It helps students think about proportion and scale.
• It makes students better at describing what they see when they combine writing with drawing.
• It develops students’ “graphic memory”.

In his presentation, Ablett describes a way to teach drawing to different grade levels. Here is the approach he proposes:

Class 1: Students should learn how to observe, how to create contour drawings of simple subjects, and how to “ward off color blindness”.


Class 2: Students should learn about simple forms and curves, should learn art-related terms and continue to develop their “graphic memory.”


Class 3: Students should learn how to draw the outlines of common objects.


Class 4: Students should learn how to draw rounded objects.


Class 5: Students should learn how to shade live subjects.


Class 6: Students should learn about other branches of art.

Ablett also argues that public perception about drawing needs to be raised. He says teachers need to do their part to prove that drawing is “one of the bases of education”, equal to other subjects such as arithmetic. He says that if students are going to learn arithmetic, there is no reason they shouldn’t learn drawing at the same time.

To accomplish such a formidable task, Ablett says teachers must learn how to teach drawing in a group setting. He says they can do this by using drawing subjects large enough for all students to see, by ensuring that all students have the same view of a subject, and by demonstrating the principles they are teaching with lots of enthusiasm.

The Teaching of Drawing is available online through the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One-day access to this article costs $20. Alternatively, you can search for this issue of Science at your local college library.

Literature Cited
The Teaching of Drawing. 1888. Science. 11(259): 30-31. Published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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