The Faculty of Fine Arts in Altea, Spain, of the University Miguel Hernández, has promoted the use of digital media in art teaching to develop media competence in students in the European Higher Education Area. In 2003, Students of Creative Strategies in Design (fourth year) participated in the European Competition: Art Education & New Media 2003. The University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria, has launched this event in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Education, UNESCO and the International Society for Education through Art. Art teachers and student art teachers were invited to take part in this event to show how digital media are used in art education. This experience was very successful and encouraged us to apply digital tools in teaching drawing for beginners.
Therefore, through this approach we aim to promote the use of digital media in realistic drawing teaching to develop early media competence in students. In the curriculum, life drawing takes place in the first two years. The methods of teaching include a double point of view: Bauhaus pedagogy and Classic heritage. In any case, drawing is a language. This is why it is called Visual Literacy. The process of drawing can be learned and taught in a similar way to any other language. Nevertheless, the source of all drawing comes from “observation”. That is, listen to your eyes, not your brain. Once the students realize that eyes are an important tool, they are ready for the first rule of realistic drawing. Pure observation will take them to the heart of realistic drawing.
However, it takes time and class conversations until the student can see that these forms of drawing come from observation. Visualising is an ability acquired by learning “how to see”. That is because “how to see” is a very important step in the learning process. Looking for the development of students abilities at that phase, we introduce digital skills. This gives students powerful problem-solving skills that can be applied to other subjects in the new curriculum. Once a student has learned to see through recording observation, he or she will naturally evolve a personal working style.
Initially, we start our drawing lesson by sketching the human figure, looking carefully at the lines that connect to the starting place and drawing lightly and keeping continually re-evaluating and correcting. Once finished, we set it aside. Then teachers explain to the students the use of digital media, and show examples that illustrate this. Students are encouraged to make a vectorial drawing of the same model pose. They should explore the new technological media and its possibilities outside the classroom and bring in after the results.
In essence, this is a workable approach to teaching that combines learning through practical work while stimulating the student's reflective capacity. The students should connect vectorial and hand drawing by evaluating his or her work to related exercises, concepts, viewpoints and perceptions. In this way, practice (learning by doing) integrates theory. A good drawer has learned to pay attention to what the eyes are seeing and to its various processes (practical and theoretical). These conscious thought processes are stimulated by the interaction of traditional (graphite pencil, charcoal, pastels, crayons, paper) and digital techniques (vectorial drawing software), so that it is easy to achieve an integral learning and share new learning innovations with Uni Network