Girl Scouts: Drawing Badge

Learn techniques to make your drawings even better.

1. Experiment with different materials

I drew a picture of clouds with three different materials: charcoal, pencil, and oil pastel.

2. Learn how to add shading

I drew a picture of an apple using 5 different shading techniques: shading, crosshatching, contour shading, scumbling, and smudging.

3. Get some perspective

I made a 1-point perspective guide. I read Perspective! for Comic Book Artists to find out more about perspective. I used depth cues like overlap, relative size, and atmospheric perspective to draw a picture of the Sandia Mountains. I used depth cues like the vanishing point, foreshortening, and relative size to draw a room.

4. Use your imagination like a graphic artist

I made some blind contour drawings. See if you can guess what I was trying to draw!

5. Make your masterpiece–and show it off!

I drew an oil pastel of a squirrel and some scratch art. I was showing off my artwork the whole time, because I was doing this badge with my grandmother over Zoom!

Bibliography

  1. 'Pencil Shading Tips and Techniques for Beginners', acessed on August 15, 2020, https://artsartistsatwork.com/pencil-shading-tips-techniques-for-beginners/.
  2. 'Oil Pastels 101: A Comprehensive Guide', acessed on August 15, 2020, https://emptyeasel.com/2009/01/22/oil-pastels-101-a-comprehensive-guide-to-painting-with-oil-pastel/.
  3. 'How to Draw with Charcoal Pencils - a Landscape Sketch', acessed on August 15, 2020, https://thevirtualinstructor.com/draw-with-charcoal-pencils.html.
  4. 'To Learn to Draw, Start with your Shoe', acessed on November 12, 2020, https://nyti.ms/2ZZnrjm.
  5. Chelsea, David. Perspective! for Comic Book Artists. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1997.