Two students collaborated on this alien spaceship tape drawing. One student was a confident renderer and took the lead on making the alien figure and the spaceship. The other student was intimidated by the partner’s abilities and persistently claimed to not be “artistic.” We encouraged this student to take on the challenge of designing the pattern for the spaceship’s tractor beam, a task with a wide range of potential visual solutions.

Two or three iterations in, the student discovered a method of overlaying tape strips that resulted in this stunning illustration of light beams. During the class walkthrough at the end of the workshop, fellow students noted that the boldness of that pattern is what makes the drawing dynamic. 

The phrase “not artistic” is often code for a lack of confidence in representational rendering, but rarely should that be a roadblock for art-making or collaboration.