📽️ Tips for Drawing People

From a NON-artist, generalist Waldorf teacher

One of my favorite stories about my Waldorf journey with art comes from week one of my first Waldorf practicum. My mentor teacher was a celebrated artist—like, he sold his art to supplement his Waldorf teaching income—so I was a little intimidated about my lack of skill, but also knew that I stood to learn a lot.

One day in class (it was third grade), the students were working on a main lesson page, and one of them came up and asked him for advice on drawing a cow. He started to answer but then stopped himself and turned to me.

“Ms. Floyd-Preston, how about you take this question. What’s your advice for drawing a cow?”

Are you kidding me?! Master artist asks intimidated practicum student to teach a student how to draw a cow? A COW!?!?

He did eventually bail me out, but not before making me sweat!

The WORK of Art

That was way back at the beginning of my struggle with art in the classroom, and though I’m thankful for the years of practice, it has never started coming easily. I’ve just had to make my peace with the fact that for my artistic work to turn out to be something I’m proud of, I’ve got to put in TIME and WORK.

And I’m pleased to say that I have become more satisfied with my artistic efforts.

So, all that to say—I deliver this artistic advice with a big ole disclaimer. I’m sure many of you could put my efforts to shame. And if you’ve got advice, please, share it with the class in the comments.

How to Draw a Person

In this video, I go through a few of the techniques and strategies that I figured out about drawing people. They won’t address everything—figuring out gesture will always be a struggle—but this advice can give you a basic form to be happy with.