Chalk Drawing

By Rick Tan

Introduction
I think what keeps a grownup young and vital is the drive to learn new
things. Even as parents and teachers, we place ourselves in the position of
student. We welcome new experiences and new challenges. We learn what
we can learn from life around us. It is for the benefit of our own souls, but
also for the benefit of the children we teach and model for. I am thankful
that you have made a wonderful choice to learn about drawing with chalk. I
hope you find it helpful in your path to build up your creative self.

In my Chalk Drawing eBook, you will find morsels of information that will
assist you in working in this medium. You have to be willing to experiment,
to be challenged, to be open to making mistakes. As you chalk up more
hours on the board, you will build up your confidence and find your own
artistic style. Enjoy!

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Waldorf Loves Chalk
Working with chalk was not a medium I had much experience with prior to
becoming a Waldorf teacher. Now, every day at the Waldorf school I teach
at, I have chalk on my pants and sleeves, chalk dust blankets a pile of books
near the chalkboard, and every piece of cloth I use for erasing has
permanent multi-colored chalk stains. I think if we collected the chalk dust
from every Waldorf teacher in every Waldorf school around the world, we
could re-create the Parthenon in chalk plaster! And don’t get me started on
the itty bitty leftover pieces – I never have the heart to throw them away,
so who know what kind of architectural masterpiece we could create from
those pieces!

In the spirit of simple and serene classroom environments, chalkboards and

chalk hark back to traditional methods. In reverence for the use of natural
elements (compared to whiteboards and smelly markers, and board-sized
interactive computer screens), Waldorf loves to use chalk. Chalk is made
from calcium – a material of the ancient earth and fossils and bones. As a
Waldorf teacher, working with chalk gives me a warm connection to the
earth and my students.

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Role of Chalk Drawing
Chalk is one of my most versatile tools as a Waldorf teacher. My chalk
drawings serve three main purposes: to inspire, to teach, and to copy.
When I introduce a new block of the curriculum, I create a related chalk
drawing to inspire the students. For instance, I had drawn a scene of a
Tuscan village when my sixth graders spent four weeks in our European
geography block.

Drawing with chalk serves a visual aid in teaching your students new
concepts and skills. It becomes indispensable when you want to model a
precise way to write, or to demonstrate a process, or to aid in explaining
math computations.

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The third purpose of creating chalk drawings is to offer the students a visual
image of what you want them to reproduce. In my example below, I
demonstrated how to achieve the geometry of a hexagon using a compass
and how to nest them in decreasing proportion. The students copied this
geometric construction into their main lesson book.

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What and When to Draw

There are no rules governing what and when to do a chalk drawing.

Traditionally, a chalk drawing accompanies the block the students are on. In
which case, you will create a new drawing every three to four weeks, and
erase it at the end of a block! You may decide to create your inspirational
chalk drawing to reflect the mood of the changing seasons. You may decide
to make a drawing to represent major holidays. With the above example, I
used the lotus flower resting serenely on a quiet pond as my inspiration
drawing for our block on physics when my sixth graders were studying the
properties of light and optics.

For teaching purposes, you will use a chalk drawing or diagram quite
frequently, depending on the topic and how best suited chalk would be to
the students’ learning. The images you use must resonate with the children
somehow; the color, form, subject, and relationship to the topic you are
teaching must have some kind of meaningfulness. Your use of the
chalkboard can span the spectrum of mundane math skills review to the
magnificent depiction of St. Francis in a garden surrounded by birds.

You have to trust your instincts as to what feels appropriate for what you
are teaching and how you feel the child would respond to it.

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A Reference Library of Pictures
Next to the chalk itself, a library of books from which you can refer to is
very important. Creating a drawing from scratch can be quite challenging; it
helps to have images and drawings from which you can translate into a
chalk drawing. Books on animals and plants, the human figure, landscapes,
and form drawings would be useful.

Basics of Drawing with Chalk

When you have an idea of what image you want to render in chalk, or have
found an image from your reference books you want to try, then you are
ready to begin your chalk drawing. The following techniques are steps you
can take in creating your chalk drawing. To maximize the benefit of this
ebook, you should have chalk and a chalkboard available, and do each of
the techniques. Start by following the given exercises, then apply the
techniques shown by using an image you have chosen. Deliberately, I have
put the techniques in the order of steps you would take to complete a chalk
drawing. You can spend as much time as you want with each technique,
and practice the techniques that are most challenging for you.

What you will discover as the underlying skill in chalk drawing is that your
creative eye is constantly informing the process. Chalk drawing is not a

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start-do-finish kind of activity. It is a process of start-do-evaluate-do-
evaluate-start over-do-do-evaluate-finish-do some more-evaluate-finish.
The nature of the medium allows much room for experimentation - and it is
erasable should your creative eye see a re-start.

Soul Starts – Digits Do – Eyes Evaluate – Artists Never Finish!

Since you have access to my chalk drawing video, you may decide to watch
it first before moving on. The information shared here explains a bit more
about the technique, but the video shows how I created the pictures. You
may even have both to refer to simultaneously. Do what is best for you.
Give it a go, find your own artistic style, aim high, be the chalk!

Line or Fill
Fundamental to Waldorf in the early grades is demonstrating the creation
of forms by starting from the inside out. It symbolizes the soul contained
within organisms and objects. Humans, for example, are not an empty shell
contained by an outline, we are instead filled with soul and body. When the
Waldorf teacher is in front of the younger child or student about to create
some kind of drawing, he or she is mindful about using fill to make the
image to honor this philosophy. Aside from the esoteric perspective,
choosing fill over line has a technical advantage in chalk drawing. Let’s
experiment and see if this is true for you.

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Exercise 1: Using your chalk, draw the outline of a leaf. Perhaps you are an
artist, and your first attempt resulted in a accurately rendered leaf. But, you
may have noticed how immediate the leaf shape had to be formed in order
for it to resemble a leaf – once you started to draw the outline, there was
little room for error.

Now, use fill to create the leaf. Using the side of your chalk, begin in the
middle of the leaf and gradually work your way to the edges of the leaf. Use
your creative eye to evaluate your fill work as you go, make adjustments,
add more where you want more curve, create the tip of the leaf, create
where the stem might be. Using fill, you increase your ability to render a
leaf shape you want.

Exercise 2: Make a mushroom using outline. Make a mushroom using fill.

Exercise 3: Make a circle using an outline. Make a circle using fill.

Is there anything wrong with using an outline to render an image? No, not
at all. I use outlining all the time to begin my drawings in the upper grades,
and I use it all the time when I am in the process of starting the layout of
my chalk drawings. But, I have found that ultimately I use fill to give the
objects and images their final shape.

Forming a Shape
Our eyes tell us when shapes have taken on some level of familiarity. We
can recognize the silhouette of a circle compared to an oval, an oak tree
compared to a pine tree, a bear compared to a walrus. In using fill, you are
forming a shape. In this step, you are taking the fill technique to create
more complex imagery.

Exercise 1: Copy the giraffe I have rendered in the example below by using
the side of your chalk, preferably, a piece about an inch long. You can start
anywhere, but I have found that starting at the heart space of the animal
works well. Build out from there. Evaluate as you go. Your eye will see

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when the proportions appear correct, when the placement of appendages
appear to be in the right spot.

Exercise 2: Find another image from your reference books to form its
shape using fill. Practice this technique with different images.

Shaping a Form
In the previous exercise, you had formed a shape. In this next step, you will
be shaping a form! What do I mean by this? Once you have established a
shape, it becomes now the structure – the form – from which you will add
features that further inform the observer of what that shape is. You will
add details such as clothing, color, and other identifying elements. Like a
sculptor who has created the shape of a human figure, you will now shape
it to give it more life and character. The advantage of creating the form first
is that you have some freedom and flexibility with placement and layout of
the various parts of your chalk drawing, if you are doing a scene or
landscape, for instance. When you are happy with where the forms are,
and their positioning, then you can begin shaping the forms.

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Exercise 1: Begin by drawing the form of two human figures. I used a chalk
that hints at skin color – it is a peachy mauve color, but you can use light
brown, tan, cream, pink, or white. Add clothing to the human forms by
laying chalk directly over the figures. You can use the side of your chalk for
larger parts like the tunic, or the tip for sharper details such as the wizard’s
staff or the crusader’s cross. Use reference images if you need help with
clothing styles. With faces, it is not necessary to go into too much detail.

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Most times, just a round oval for a face is enough, or an oval with hair. You
can add an indication of a face with simple lines for the eyes, nose, and lips.

Exercise 2: Decide on a vignette, or imaginary scene, between two forms

such as a horse and a human. Start by using fill to form a shape. Then, begin
shaping the forms by adding detail to the horse and human. What details
would you add? A story unfolds as you work; or you may have a story
already in mind, and the story will inform the relationship between the
human and the horse.

Layering Color
In shaping the form, you added characteristic or distinguishing features.
Layering color is another step in shaping your forms as it adds another level
of detail and uniqueness to your chalk drawing. You might have a variety of
chalk colors to choose from, but layering color allows you to customize the
look of your drawing. It can add interesting texture and fun to your drawing.
It can add a level of realism - we actually perceive a multitude of colors
within what we may initially think of as a single color on an object.

Exercise 1: Start with the form of a bunny rabbit, like the example given
below. With the side of your chalk, layer some swishes of another color
over the rabbit form. Add yet another color if you wish. Try to picture the
direction of the rabbit’s fur, and intentionally swish your chalk along the fur
lines. Add a dark color for the eyes, and a small dot within the eye o
indicate the reflected light. Use a lighter color where I have placed it in my
example. You make take it a step further, and using the tip of your chalk,
actually create individual strands of fur to indicate another layer of detail.
Evaluate as you go.

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Exercise 2: Experiment with layering color. Draw 4 leaf shapes on the
board. Try to achieve 4 different colored leaves by layering different colors
over the leaf form. They can represent autumn leaves, turning shades of
green, red, ochre, crimson, gold, and brown. Reflect on the mood each leaf
may elicit from you. Which one was your favorite leaf? Why? Evaluate what
worked for you.

Exercise 3: Draw another giraffe form. Layer color on your giraffe to

achieve the distinctive pattern of patches of brown, orange, and yellow
colors on the giraffe. Use the sides of smaller pieces of chalk to help you
manipulate the shapes easier.

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 Light and Shadow
One of the most widely used artistic techniques in many types of mediums
is the use of light and shadow. In chalk drawing, I enjoy using it when I want
to add a layer of realism and three-dimensionality to my work. Adding the
effect of light and shadow is a way of shaping the form and layering color.
It is a technique that is more advanced, and requires patience and practice
to achieve a reasonable believable look. (Often, the effect happens on its
own, as the eye will automatically believe in the illusion.) To achieve the
effect of light and shadow on an object, you have to determine where you
think the light source is coming from. Most of the time, it is from above us,
and the source is the sun. Light-colored chalk will give the look of sunlight
hitting the object, and dark-colored chalk will give the look of shadows that
are receiving little or no light.

Exercise 1: Using the three successive images below, create the effect of
light and shadow on a drawn plant. Start by forming the shape of the plant
with a medium shade of green. (Image 1) Next, we will shape its form by
using light and shadow. Use a light-colored chalk (yellow, light green, or
white) and apply this color with the side edge of your chalk or the tip of
your chalk to the portions of the leaves and stems that you think may be
receiving light from the sun above. (Image 2) Lastly, apply a darker shade of
green or blue to the portions of the leaves and stems that are not receiving
sun exposure, or may be receiving a shadow from a leafy structure above it.
(Image 3)

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Exercise 2: Try an image of your choice (tree, mushroom, barn, person),
and see how you might achieve the interplay of light and shadow. On a
larger chalk drawing with many elements, giving hints of light add depth
and excitement to your chalk drawing. The image below is a detail from my
Tuscan village chalk drawing. Look at how I used light-colored chalk on the
edges of the bushes and trees, and tips of the wild grasses.

Smudging
There is a final step you can take with your chalk drawings, smudging. After
you have laid down your finishing details on your chalk drawing, you may
decide that the look you want requires you to smudge the chalk. Often, the
layering application of chalk already creates a blended appearance,
meaning colors and objects seem to flow into one another. You can take it
a step further if, by using your fingers, you rub the chalk into the surface of
your board, thus smudging the chalk, or you can call it blending too.

Take a look at the example of the plant we had drawn from the previous
exercise. I placed it below and put it side by side with the same drawing
that I had blended/smudged with my fingers. Compare the difference
between the two. It is a matter of preference (and time, board surface, and
appropriateness) when choosing between the two final looks.

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Here is a detail of two of my drawings. The castle drawing was left alone,
and The Last Supper was heavily smudged. (I wanted the look of a
deteriorating fresco, like the original painting by da Vinci.)

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Supplies

Items you will need: chalkboard, chalk, straight edge, eraser, old rags,
reference books, carpenter’s level (optional), and board compass (optional).

About the Author

Rick Tan, MD, is a Waldorf teacher, artist, feng shui consultant, and musician
who lives in Davis, California, with his wife and four children. He writes about his
experiences in the Waldorf classroom, at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks,
and homeschooling on his blog www.thewaldorfway.blogspot.com. Rick and his
wife Jennifer enjoy leading art, handwork and curriculum workshops, conducting
teleseminars, and consulting with homeschooling families. More information
about their services can be found at: www.syrendellacademy.com.

Blogs: www.thewaldorfway.blogspot.com www.syrendell.blogspot.com

Twitter: Syrendell
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Workshops: www.syrendellacademy.com
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Copyright 2011 Syrendell

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