it is so important to 9th graders to make drawings that are super realistic but they are rarely willing to put in the amount of energy needed into actually observing what's in front of them. so...i try to develop ways to trick them into doing more observing than drawing in the hopes that they will build these habits before it matters too much.
in this exercise i set up a still life and then ask them to create a representation of the set up on paper without actually drawing any of the objects. it should be detailed enough so that someone could gather all the supplies they would need and then re-build it in another location at another time.
i did this for the first time when i was teaching basic drawing at the university of iowa and i can't even remember if it was my idea or if it's one i stole from someone else. the iowa kids came up with all kinds of crazy solutions to the problem. my 9th graders are often less inventive but this year's crew did some interesting things. and they learn what they're supposed to whether or not the work they make is all that visually interesting.
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