Drawing on Everything: Discovering Your Creative Voice

Draw on everything with celebrated visual artist Shantell Martin. This half-hour class takes you into her NYC studio to explore the projects that inspire her, the markers that move her, and creative prompts she's used with thousands of students to help everyone find their own personal creative voice.

Watch her create a series of rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness drawings, then draw your own "creative sprints" using 5 of her favorite prompts: standing up, with music, while rotating the paper, while blindfolded, and while talking aloud. If you're used to studiously sitting to draw, this is unlike anything you've seen or done before.

This is a class for artists, creators, makers, and everyone looking to kickstart their creativity. No experience or technique needed—just break out a pen, follow the prompts, and let it happen!

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What You'll Learn

• Introduction. When learning how to draw, lessons aren’t everything — you also need to have confidence and the ability to embrace spontaneity. In this class, you’ll see how Shantell Martin embodies these abilities in her often performative drawings. She’ll teach you how to develop your own unique style through five drawing prompts.
• Your project: Rapid-fire drawings. You’ll learn to draw in different — and unexpected — positions as you go over drawing basics with Shantell. She’ll encourage you to reflect on your experiences as you go, drawing shadows, abstract shapes, and whatever else comes to mind.
• Materials. Using a “low-maintenance” materials list, you’ll set up for Shantell’s five drawing prompts. You’ll get a look at the various pen brands Shantell uses in her work, get tips on how to avoid ink splatter, and see what other miscellaneous materials can come in handy when creating large-scale works.
• Prompt 1: Draw standing up. For this exercise, you’ll work on a big roll of paper affixed to the wall while learning to overcome mistakes by embracing them. You’ll work on turning abstract shapes into more concrete designs and learn to rely on your gut when it’s time to finish your drawing.
• Prompt 2: Draw with music. As one of the more fun and abstract drawing lessons, this exercise will teach you not to hesitate in your work. Shantell will encourage you to draw to music you’re comfortable with and to draw with music you’re unfamiliar with to bring you out of your comfort zone.
• Prompt 3: Draw while rotating paper. This exercise will challenge your preconceived notions of drawing; how to hold the pen, how to hold the paper, and how to hold yourself. You’ll learn what to think about, or rather, not think about—when drawing while rotating your paper so as to best draw your subconscious self into your work.
• Prompt 4: Draw blindfolded. Not only will you relinquish your sense of sight for this activity, you’ll also give up your dominant hand for an even greater challenge. The idea here is to let you hyperfocus on the activity at hand, drawing, by removing certain sensory distractions. You’ll be able to do this activity by yourself or with a group for a collaborative piece, and you’ll learn some creative prompts for drawing lines with your eyes closed. Hopefully, whatever you come up with will make you laugh.
• Prompt 5: Draw while talking aloud. Though Shantell will have been doing this all lesson long, you’ll get your first chance to talk out loud while you put pen to paper. You’ll find that this exercise may be best accomplished with a partner, so you can carry on a conversation with that person while doodling something completely unrelated. Your biggest challenge will be to keep up the conversation while you draw anything but what you’re discussing.
• Drawing is for everyone. You’ll learn to appreciate that drawing isn’t restricted to professional illustrators or art students. Drawing can be used as a tool to help you learn about yourself, make quick decisions, and establish a unique, personal style.