Yes, that’s an issue for a lot of art teachers, Gillian. Even at home, my own kids were prolific, and used whole forest-fulls of paper, yet we also did not want to constrict. Here’s are some ideas that work for me, and the other teachers at Firstlight.

Make it clear to your students that the 14″ x 17″ sketch book is only for lesson work. This is a good record of your lessons all in one place. Students understand this better if they write their lesson date and what they’re doing at the top of each page.

For all other sketching, use different papers.

Nothing beats copy paper for warmups, especially if there is freedom to explore, which tends to produce more of the kind of work students don’t care about afterwards. We have regular size copy paper, and also the large 11 x 17″ ledger size. It is excellent for markers, especially if you get the heavier weight and really bright white versions. We get our regular size at Costco, and for the larger paper we go to Staples or Office Depot. We also buy the same sizes in card stock for when you’re making heavy duty artwork. The cover stock at Staples is a not a very good a surface, but the card stock has a smooth hard surface, similar to bristol board. It takes wet media better.

If you rely on parents to donate to your school or purchase sketch pads, they should be happy to get these papers for you. It might be difficult for them to find the larger sizes, so you might have to go get that yourself, unless you have one of those special super-parents.

For older students I also like to encourage carrying a mobile sketch book: a very small sketchbook that they can carry everywhere. Fill the pages with as many live sketches as possible.

 

An artist’s chance to choose what they want is a something special. We came up with the term, “Artists Choice” to help reinforce this concept. It implies that you’re creating artwork instead of playing. (We banished the more popular term, “free draw”). Sometimes we also say that lettering of any kind is not part of artist’s choice, and sometimes we restrict a little bit more, such as saying, “no cartoons” or, “only original work”.

We talk frequently about making each blank paper worth something. It may turn out to be a learner, but don’t give up after the first line is drawn. Keep after it and envision your finished work. Even a learner adds to your ability, so nothing is ever a waste of time, even if you hate the resulting artwork.

Don’t ever say that a paper is ruined, or a student made a mistake. Instead, call it a learner. It’s ok for the student to throw it away or even tear it up, but emphasize the value of learning from every single attempt. It’s called practice!

 

If a student tends to draw small, that can actually be a problem. Young artists especially, do not think about unused space, and will usually center their work inside the frame of the sheet. Then they believe that piece of paper is used up.

It’s frustrating to see giant sheets of quality drawing paper with a small rough sketch in the very center.

Instead of drawing one tiny thing in the middle of the page and then moving on to a clean sheet, have students divide their paper into 4 sections, with a line across the middle sideways, and another one up and down. This creates kind of a window-pane look, with 4 panels. Now you have 4 mini pages to work in.

You might also show some images of artist’s sketch books from the internet. Just make sure you select them before hand. Active searching with children present is NOT a great idea, even with safe-search on and filters. Pinterest is a great source too.

If you have other suggestions please share in the comments.

Unlimited paper is important, because the world needs happy artists!
Dennas