I led a fun Christmas themed drawing hour online this morning, so I thought I’d share the exercises here in case you’d like to do something similar with your family and friends this Christmas.
All you need is a pile of paper and some pencils. Upgrade to colour pencils if you have them. I’d recommend about 10 minutes of fast drawing for each challenge.
Drawing challenge 1:
President of the Royal Watercolour Society, Charles Williams, is currently showing work in the exhibition, ’I, Santa’ at Studio 1.1 Gallery. His Santas (above) are quite different to the usual happy go ho ho ho Santas that we are more familiar with.
Here are three Santa drawing challenges for you and your party guests. Show them Charles’s paintings, then:
a) Give them an emotion and ask them to draw Santa portraying that emotion.
or
b) Play ‘Impossible Squiggle Santa’. Each person makes a random squiggle on a piece of paper for someone else to turn into a Santa.
or
c) Play ‘Santa Consequences’. You know how it goes. The first person draws a head and neck for Santa, before folding it under to hide. The next person draws a torso and arms, then waist to bottom of knees, and finally, bottom of knees and the feet.
Drawing challenge 2:
I love Josie McCoy’s 1999-2001 oil paintings portraying characters from the BBC series; ‘The Royle Family’.
Show Josie’s work to your guests then ask each of them to re-draw the image of the Royle Family below, but change each of the faces into someone at your party.
Drawing challenge 3:
Wayne Thiebaud made delicious paintings of food. Before tucking into dessert, ask your guests to draw it! The best drawing gets a double portion!
Drawing challenge 4:
Escher made this drawing of his own reflection. Show your guests the image above, then grab a bauble from your tree and ask them to make a self portrait from it.
Drawing challenge 5:
And finally, either show the painting above to your guests for 20 seconds and then ask them to re-draw it from memory, or pair people up so that one person describes the image, and the other draws from the description.
Have fun….. and a very Merry Christmas!
Paul x