First Steps to Drawing (Tuition Free, 5 sessions)
Adult Tuition-Free Class | Registration opens Tuesday, February 17, 2026 8:00 AM EST
Anyone can learn to draw, including you. This beginner-friendly course is designed for students who are new to drawing or who have little to no prior experience. Through guided exercises and supportive instruction, students will build confidence while learning foundational drawing concepts. Working from still life and photographs, you will explore how to observe carefully and translate what you see onto paper using essential drawing tools and techniques.
What You Will Learn
- How to use line quality to describe form and movement
- Techniques for creating value and shading Methods for measuring and achieving accurate proportions
- Understanding negative space and the picture plane
- How to use a viewfinder when drawing from still life and photographs
• Vinyl eraser
• Kneaded eraser
• Pencil sharpener
• Soft vine charcoal
• Compressed charcoal
• 12 inch ruler
• Graphite pencils: HB, 2B, 4B (or an assorted pack of “sketching pencils”)
• Strathmore 400 series (or similar) drawing paper pad - 12” x 18” or bigger
• Small sketchbook (optional)
Alicia Link
Alicia Link is a multidisciplinary visual artist, educator, and arts writer whose work interrogates systems that restrict and limit our agency and understanding of our bodies. Rooted in both object-making, painting, and performance strategies, her practice privileges material experimentation and process as a means of engaging with embodied memory, labor, and the politics of value—both personal and cultural.
She holds a BFA in Painting from Boston University and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin. Link has participated in residencies at Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia, PA, and Vermont Studio Center, where she was a residency fellowship recipient. She has exhibited at galleries and arts centers across the US, including Space Heater Gallery, Brooklyn; Roy G Biv Gallery, Columbus, OH; the Visual Arts Center in Austin, TX; and AUTOMAT, Philadelphia. She currently teaches at Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and Fleisher Art Memorial. She views the classroom as a radical space for exchanging and investing in ideas while encouraging critical conversations about how art connects to broader political concerns.