When I was asked to teach presentation techniques a good few years back, I hadn't had much experience with conveying messages to an audience - I had a strong feeling I could do it, but wasn't exactly sure what to say and how, never mind selecting materials and their order etc. etc. (Those of you who are presentation aces will remember those days, haha! Those who were just given the task, it's OK, don't fret - breathe in, breathe out... take one step at a time, you'll manage!)
Books, sites and all advice aside, after the first two-three teaching sessions, it became apparent that students learn best when you SHOW them how to DO stuff - meaning, in quite a few cases, literally putting the pencil/marker/brush into their hand and support their hand with mine as we drew lines together (which is why those Youtube videos don't really work in conquering paralyzing fear when it comes to ACTUALLY learning how to draw). It was a bit easier when it came to colouring, though it still involved those darn hand strokes. And believe me, if you want your lines to be straight, you just have to keep drawing them! Kinda like the multiplication table: you repeat it until you learn it - you can't do equations without that. That is, if you need to do equations... :))
This being said, I created one exercise which helped a lot with rendering techniques for presentation purposes: I drew the perspective of a room in pencil and then rendered it in four different techniques: pencil, monochrome ink and marker, colour pencils and markers, and watercolours. I gave each student four copies of the line-drawing and we focused on a rendering technique at a time. They really enjoyed the exercise and some built a lot of confidence in the process!
Here are those four initial renderings, enjoy! And maybe try this idea out. :)
