Drawing with an Envelope

I was teaching two of my younger students today, they are in 2nd and 5th grade.  I have been working with them, especially the older one, on using envelopes to start a drawing.  An envelope is an outline of a simple shape that surrounds the subject of your drawing.  It is done as the very first mark put down on the paper.  It helps to get the placement of the subject on the paper correctly, helps to start analyzing the big shapes, and helps to avoid time consuming mistakes in proportion.  I have found this to be one of the most effective ways to teach students how to start to learn to "see" and how to work big simple shapes before moving on to smaller details.  I think sometimes my students start using envelopes just to humor me, but slowly they realize what a useful tool it is and how much it improves their drawing.

The method is very simple, you draw a simple shape using straight lines that encompass the object(s) you are drawing.  This helps to simplify things and to see the big shapes, and trains you to look for the big shapes before the small ones.

For example, in Bouguereau's Virgin of the Angels, the envelope would look like this, something like a slanted diamond:

image from the J. Paul Getty Museum

Here is a picture of some of the pieces from my student art show.  All the pieces on the far right panel are of grade school students' work, ranging from 2nd to 8th grade, and I taught all of them this method.  The pencil portrait of Abraham Lincoln was done by one of my 5th grade students and it won first place in the Thinkin' Lincoln Art Contest.