Mirror Drawing: An Intermediate Drawing Activity

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Once you've introduced the basic compositional forms of drawing, this is a fun activity for taking the next step. It's also a good community-building activity and an excellent step toward preparing children for drawing on the computer. In this activity you and the kids will draw simple shapes to copy.

Recommended Time: 

10 to 20 minutes

Goals: 

To practice basic drawing skills

Materials and Equipment: 
Sheets of blank white paper for you and the kids
Markers or crayons of various colors
Activity Steps: 

Step 1: Model the Activity

Demonstrate the following: Take a blank white sheet of paper and fold in half lengthwise. Unfold it. Now fold it in half along the width, then in half again in the same direction. Unfold the page and it will be divided into eight equal parts, like so:

 

Now draw four quick figures in the four boxes in the top row. Keep the pictures simple, but make them interesting. Here's an example:

 Step 2: Pair-Share

Show the pictures to everyone. To show the mirror drawing process, copy one of the pictures into the blank square opposite it, using a different color pen. Talk through the compositional forms as you do so. When finished, show what you've done.

Now walk over to one of the kids and ask them to copy one of the pictures into the blank square opposite, just as you did, again pointing out the basic compositional forms as he does so. You can go on to other kids to fill out the remaining blocks, if you like, or stop now if you think the kids understand the process.

Call two children to the front and have them demonstrate the folding process. Now have each draw four quick pictures as you did before and exchange the pages when they're done. Have each child copy one of their partner's pictures in a blank box. Help them by repeating the instructions as they proceed.

Step 3: Draw

Next, have all the kids take a sheet of paper, fold it and draw pictures in four of the boxes. Then have them trade pages with someone else and mirror all the pictures on the new page they receive. When done, call on people to hold up their pages and show their work.

Variations: 

    • Once kids have drawn the initial row of pictures and passed the pages, have the receivers mirror only one of the four images. When they're done, have them pass the pages to a different student to mirror the next picture, and so on, until everyone has worked on four different pages.

    • Take the finished pages and tape them together, short end to short end, to form borders for your classroom.

    • Once kids have seen this activity the first time, you can get more complex with your pictures and shorten the initial modeling and pair-share steps.

    • Take a look at Mona Brookes' books Drawing With Children and Drawing With Teens for more ideas and activities like this one. We highly recommend both books as core texts for learning about teaching kids to draw and for becoming more confident about drawing yourself.

    • After you've done a few activities like this on paper, have the kids do their mirror drawings on the computer in a program like KidPix or PhotoShop from paper handouts.