In Stern College Arts Class, Students Master Foundational Drawing Skills Looking for a personal introduction to the artistic process? Sit in on a Stern College for Women Principles of Drawing class with us during this episode of “OnCourse." Taught by Traci Tullius, co-chair of the Department of Fine Arts at Stern College, the course is focused on teaching what Tullius calls “foundational drawing skills.” In this session, students are learning how to transfer the way light falls across a continuous-tone still-life of three dimensional objects onto the two-dimensional surface of the drawing paper. Baysa Goldstein ’20s describes how she is trying to capture light properly so that she can “show the shape of something and really make it come alive,” and Ayelet Schechter ’20S demonstrates how placing light and dark values can define edges and lines among and between the objects. Rather than give assignments and hand back critiques, Tullius prefers to give her students a running feedback in the moment so that that they learn as they work and gain confidence as they increase their mastery. Whatever path her students follow, mastering these fundamental abilities, said Tullius, “takes a lot of focus and attention to detail, and that builds skills that, regardless if you continue in the visual arts or you go into another field, are important.”