CAEL1001 Contemporary Drawing: Experimental
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · S2 2026CAEL1001 Overview
- First-year studio drawing unit
- Sydney College of the Arts
- S2 2026
- Thirteen studio weeks
- No written paper
- Student-grade materials kit
CAEL1001 Contemporary Drawing: Experimental is a first-year studio unit at The University of Sydney, taught at Sydney College of the Arts and open to students from across the University.
- Assessed by A zero-weight quiz, an in class presentation, a visual diary and a self-directed project, all studio work.
- Watch for Three of the four published rows are hurdle tasks, and 35 per cent is decided in week 6.
- Hardest step Critical reflection: evaluating your own decisions rather than describing what you made.
- How to prepare Two visual diary pages every week from week 1, with reflections written on the day.
- Start early on Photographing stages, because process is assessed and a finished sheet cannot show it.
How CAEL1001 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Core Vocabulary Quiz | 0% | Ten questions taken outside class, about five to ten minutes, on the key concepts, terms and artists introduced in the unit. The University records it as an early feedback task. The unit states that it is mandatory and that it does not count towards your final grade. Due 17 August 2026 at 09:00 on the unit page and on the unit's own schedule; the quiz page itself shows 23:59 the same day, so confirm the time on Canvas. |
| In class presentation of curated project work · hurdle | 35% | You present and discuss a curated selection of the work developed in weeks 1 to 5, explaining your creative decisions and reflecting on how your practice has evolved, then upload the work. The University names the task 5 Selected Drawings and publishes it as a creative work hurdle task. Presented in class in week 6; due 11 September 2026 at 09:00, with the unit's schedule giving Friday 11 September as the upload date. Studio presentations cannot be extended. |
| Visual diary and research file · hurdle | 25% | The working record of the semester, uploaded through Canvas. The unit asks for at least two pages a week, each carrying your own drawings, images of other artists and a few lines of reflection, and it must not repeat material submitted for another task. Published as a portfolio or journal hurdle task. Due 16 November 2026 at 23:00, with a closing date of 1 December 2026. |
| Self-directed creative project · hurdle | 40% | An independent body of work you develop, resolve and document, building on the experimentation, research and reflection of the semester, uploaded through Canvas. Published as a creative work hurdle task. Due 22 November 2026 at 23:00. |
The four published rows sum to exactly 100 per cent, with the quiz carrying zero. Three things are worth keeping separate. The quiz is mandatory and worth nothing, and both halves of that are stated by the unit. Three of the four rows are published by the University as hurdle tasks, which is a condition attached to a component rather than a weight, and the exact consequence is not spelled out on the pages this guide can see, so confirm it on Canvas. And the unit separately states a 90 per cent attendance requirement, which is a requirement of the unit rather than a row in the assessment table; nothing available here calls it a hurdle, so ask your tutor what happens if you fall below it.
Current CAEL1001 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-17 | Core Vocabulary Quiz due | 09:00 on the unit page and the unit schedule; the quiz page shows 23:59. Zero weight, mandatory. |
| 2026-09-11 | Presentation work uploaded | 09:00. The presentation itself happens in class in week 6, from Monday 7 September. 35 per cent, hurdle task. |
| 2026-11-16 | Visual diary and research file due | 23:00, closing 1 December 2026. 25 per cent, hurdle task. |
| 2026-11-22 | Self-directed creative project due | 23:00. 40 per cent, hurdle task. |
Dates are as published in the University of Sydney unit page for CAEL1001 and the unit's own weekly schedule for Semester 2, 2026. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What CAEL1001 covers
CAEL1001 runs across thirteen studio weeks, moving from line and gesture through tone, collage and erasure to scale, perception, diagrams and colour, and then into a self-directed project. The last three chapters cover what is actually marked: the visual diary, the Studio Learning Rubric applied to all three graded tasks, and the final project. Each chapter links to its free guide.
Drawing the Unseen: Line, Energy and Invisible Forces
Week 1. Five short exercises with line as the only tool, seven named invisible forces, and the three variables of weight, density and rhythm.Week 1 removes the unit's most obvious subject before you can reach for it.
- Why the first exercise is a portrait you are not allowed to look at
- The unit's own definitions of line, mark-making, gesture and abstraction, read as instructions
- Weight, density and rhythm: the three variables and what each is good at
- Seven invisible forces on one sheet, and why they must not look alike
- The technical note about sound being a vibration rather than a field
- Drawing as an instrument: graphite that responds to the room it hangs in
Performative and Gestural Drawing
Week 2. The body as the instrument, frottage and site, paired performance and documentation, and a sheet of at least A1.Week 2 shifts from observation to action: rather than depicting something, you investigate how movement, collaboration, time and site generate marks, and how those marks record the that someone or something was there, or has gone.
- From observation to action, and what changes about the sheet
- The body as the instrument: lungs, torso, arm, hand and feet
- Why nothing smaller than an A1 sheet is accepted
- Documentation as material rather than as a record of material
- The six-stage studio loop, and why the surface is never blank
- Masking tape as a control strip for a drawing that changes
Light and Tone: Form Without Outline
Week 3. A seven-step value scale, a tonal map of five to seven values, an A2 drawing without outline, and the same drawing cut into squares.Week 3 is the first week with a repeatable technique in it.
- Why the value scale is an instrument rather than an exercise
- The specified still life, and what each specification removes
- Scale, then map, then draw at size: the order that prevents outlining
- Sorting many values into a few groups, and imposing boundaries deliberately
- Graphite powder and squinting: two shortcuts that are not cheating
- How many values to use, and why more is not better
Drawing Back into Collage
Week 4. Collage used as a starting point rather than an outcome, an ink ground made first, and the drawing that happens after the glue dries.Week 4 states its distinction in the first sentence and the whole studio depends on it: collage here is where the drawing starts rather than what it ends up being. The sequence is deliberate.
- Collage as a drawing process, and what that excludes
- Stopping when the arrangement looks good: the commonest outcome
- Letting a found image supply all the meaning
- Why the ink drawing is made first and allowed to dry
- Chance and intention as two independent axes rather than one
- Four positions a sheet can occupy, and what each can honestly claim
Addition and Erasure as Drawing Processes
Week 5. A compressed charcoal ground, three removal tools, a subtractive portrait and a subtractive text piece photographed as a pair.Week 5 reframes the eraser.
- Erasure reclassified from correction to technique
- Why starting from black changes which decisions are expensive
- The materials list, and eight ways to change a value on one sheet
- The tape as a control strip, and the order that preserves it
- Preparing a ground with no visible stroke direction
- Kneadable eraser, standard eraser, tissue and swab compared
Variable Scale: When Size Changes Meaning
Week 8. Repeated symbols, then one small textured object drawn at life size and at an exaggerated scale, with the factor stated.Week 8 makes a strong claim: scale is much more than physical size, because it shapes how we a thing, a body, a building or a space is understood in the first place, and a shift in it can leave something ordinary looking huge, delicate, funny, uneasy or hard to place.
- Scale as a concept rather than a measurement
- Three meanings of the word in one week, and why they conflict
- Why the object must be small and textured
- What each step up the standard paper sizes actually costs
- Mark size has to move with the sheet
- Enlargement converts texture into form
Sense and Perception Beyond the Eye
Week 9. Tactile drawing, description as a channel, chance and gravity, and the exercise where somebody redraws your work from your words.Week 9 removes sight as the governing channel and asks what remains.
- Removing sight as the governing channel, and why it is not a novelty week
- The materials list as a set of ways to get a mark you did not draw
- Four channels, and what each one is structurally unable to give you
- Touch: precise about edges, useless about size
- Sound as a record of duration rather than of shape
- The description exercise, and why it transfers to every assessed task
Data, Diagrams and Machine Generated Images
Week 10. Objects turned into visual systems, maps that are not about geography, and one written description sent down two routes.Week 10 treats drawing as a way of sorting information, carrying it into another form and making it visible, rather than as a way of depicting appearance, noting that mapping, diagramming, symbol sets and system drawings have done that job for a very long time, and that digital technologies now shape those approaches and raise questions about authorship, interpretation and creativity.
- Drawing as a system for carrying information
- Why the studio makes the diagram before the charcoal study
- A drawing and a diagram compared on five properties
- The operative difference: a rule you could apply to another object
- One description, two returns, and the text as the control
- What the comparison can establish, which is not which is better
Colour as a Visual Language
Week 11. Painted fragments before composition, four independent colour variables, transparency in layers, and the greyscale test.Week 11 treats colour as a visual language rather than as a descriptive tool, asking how the relations between colours do to how a thing is seen, how it feels and how deep it looks, and what colour by itself can build: a pulse, a structure, a meaning.
- Colour as a language rather than a description
- Choosing colours you like, and why it leaves nothing to say
- Working at full strength everywhere, and the hierarchy it destroys
- Why the studio starts with fragments rather than a composition
- Four independent variables: hue, value, saturation and area
- Most colour problems are value problems, and the test that shows it
The Visual Diary as a Working Record
Assessment 3, 25 per cent. Two pages a week, the four elements of a marked spread, the double dip rule, and the difference between a caption and a reflection.The visual diary and research file is published at 25 per cent as a portfolio or journal hurdle task, due 16 November 2026 at 23:00 with a closing date of 1 December 2026. The unit describes it as a working record of your creative development that should reveal your thinking, enquiry and ongoing development rather than presenting finished outcomes alone.
- What the University publishes: weight, task type and both dates
- Why a diary built in November cannot evidence development
- The double dip rule, and deciding where a drawing lives
- What the unit asks for, in numbers
- Anatomy of a spread: own work, reference, material test, reflection
- Why the elements have to share a page rather than a section
Reading the Studio Learning Rubric
All three graded tasks. Five criteria out of twenty each, two published band tables, and the criterion that exists only in what you write and say.The unit uses one Studio Learning Rubric across the whole semester rather than a different rubric for each assessment, on the argument that the qualities of successful creative practice stay the same even when the task changes: the brief tells you what to do and the rubric tells you what quality looks like.
- Why one rubric runs across the whole semester
- Reading a profile rather than a total
- Feedback from the first graded task is directly actionable on the next two
- How the focus shifts between the presentation, the diary and the project
- The five criteria, and the unit's own self-check questions
- Three criteria that cannot be earned in the last fortnight
The Self-Directed Creative Project
Assessment 4, 40 per cent. Three studio weeks, one constant held across the set, and the unit's own definition of resolved.The self-directed creative project is published at 40 per cent as a creative work hurdle task, uploaded through Canvas and due 22 November 2026 at 23:00. The unit describes it as developing, resolving and communicating an independent body of creative work that builds on the experimentation, research and reflection undertaken across the semester, and its criteria add a word the other tasks use less heavily: resolve.
- What the University publishes: weight, task type and date
- Three studio weeks, and how much of that is actually making time
- What to bring to weeks 11 to 13
- Why the project is meant to grow out of the semester
- Finding the repeat rather than the favourite
- Stating a question rather than a subject
It treats drawing as a way of thinking rather than as a way of producing pictures: across thirteen weeks you work through line as a record of invisible forces, performative and gestural mark-making, light and tone, collage as a drawing process, addition and erasure, variable scale, perception beyond sight, diagrams and machine generated images, and colour as a visual language.
Nothing is assessed by recall and there is no written paper.
The mark is made of four published rows that sum to 100 per cent: a Core Vocabulary Quiz at 0 per cent that is mandatory and does not count towards your final grade, an in class presentation of curated project work at 35 per cent in week 6, a visual diary and research file at 25 per cent due 16 November 2026, and a self-directed creative project at 40 per cent due 22 November 2026. The University publishes the last three as hurdle tasks.
All three graded tasks are marked against the same Studio Learning Rubric, whose five criteria are Creative Inquiry, Experimentation and Process, Creative Communication, Critical Reflection and Studio Engagement, each out of twenty. The unit also states a 90 per cent attendance requirement and asks you to check that you can meet it before enrolling.
A student-grade materials kit is estimated at around 100 to 130 dollars, and the unit says more than once that professional artist brands are not required. Confirm every date and rule on Canvas and the current unit page.
Worked example · free
Assigning five tonal values before touching the large sheet
- 1Sort what you can see into three groups by squinting, which collapses the range into light, mid and dark. Lit faces and near table go light; the cylinder's turning side and far table go mid; the mug interior, the shadow side of the fold and all cast shadows go dark.
- 1Assign a scale number to each group rather than a description. Lit faces at step one, near table at step two, mid-tones at step four.
- 1Split the dark group, because it contains two different things. Cast shadows at step five so they read as shadow; the mug interior at step seven, the heaviest the pencil makes.
- 1Check the range. Confirm that something on the page actually reaches step seven, since stopping at step five is the most common reason a tonal drawing reads flat from three metres away.
- 1Check for collisions. No object may sit at the same value as the surface immediately behind it, or it will disappear; here the cylinder at step four sits against a step two table, so it separates.
Key terms
- Experimental drawing
- Drawing that investigates ideas, materials and processes through curiosity and testing, where the aim is learning through experimentation rather than a perfect finished image. It is the unit's own definition and the standard the work is held to.
- Visual diary
- A record of ideas, experiments, sketches, research and reflections built across the semester. In this unit it is also a graded submission at 25 per cent, and the unit asks for at least two pages every week.
- Studio Learning Rubric
- The single marking sheet used for all three graded tasks, with five criteria each out of twenty. The unit uses one rubric all semester because the qualities of good creative practice stay the same while the task changes.
- Creative Inquiry
- The first rubric criterion. It asks how effectively you develop ideas through observation, investigation, experimentation and research, and whether those ideas have developed over time rather than arriving fully formed.
- Critical Reflection
- The rubric criterion that asks you to evaluate rather than describe your creative decisions, experimentation, research and feedback, and to identify future directions. It is the criterion most often left underevidenced.
- Studio Engagement
- The rubric criterion covering active participation, constructive peer feedback, safe studio practice, care of shared spaces and regular use of the visual diary.
- Resolved
- The unit's word for work that is complete, cohesive and intentional. Its opposite, unresolved, means incomplete, inconsistent or requiring further development, and neither term is about how polished something looks.
- Iteration
- Any reworking, alternative or next attempt at a piece. The unit counts one whether or not it is finished, and even when it stands as a complete work by itself, so an abandoned version still counts as development.
- Mark-making
- The range of marks a drawing material can produce, from bold to soft, rough to smooth, quick to carefully controlled. The unit treats the mark as a subject rather than as a by-product of drawing something.
- Tonal value
- How light or dark each area of a drawing reads, from its brightest point down to its deepest shadow. Week 3 asks you to build a seven-step scale and then work with five to seven values.
- Frottage
- A rubbing taken by laying paper over a surface and working charcoal or graphite across it, so the drawing records a place rather than an idea. Introduced in the performative and gestural week.
- Chance
- Letting a random event, or a result you did not expect, do part of the drawing. In this unit it means a procedure decided in advance and then followed, which is why it can be described and assessed.
CAEL1001 FAQ
Is there a written paper in this unit?
No. All four published assessment rows are studio work: a short online quiz worth zero, an in class presentation of curated project work at 35 per cent, a visual diary and research file at 25 per cent, and a self-directed creative project at 40 per cent. The last two are uploaded through Canvas during the formal assessment period, six days apart.
How much of the mark is decided before the mid-semester break?
Thirty-five per cent. The presentation happens in class in week 6 and draws only on work made in weeks 1 to 5, with the upload following on 11 September 2026. That makes the first five studio sessions assessment preparation, and the unit states that studio presentations cannot be extended.
What does hurdle task mean here?
The University publishes three of the four rows, the presentation, the diary and the project, as hurdle tasks. A hurdle is a condition attached to a component rather than a weight, so it changes what happens if you do not complete it. The pages available here name the tasks without spelling out the consequence, so confirm it on Canvas.
Do I need to be able to draw before I enrol?
The unit describes itself as a foundation unit and states that you do not need previous drawing experience. What it names instead are curiosity, experimentation, participation and a willingness to try new things. The cohort is drawn from around seventeen different disciplines rather than from art students alone.
What is the attendance requirement?
The unit states a 90 per cent attendance requirement and asks you to make sure you can meet it before enrolling. Attendance is recorded weekly with four codes for present, absent, sick and late, and arriving more than thirty minutes late is recorded as late. Two absences reach the warning threshold.
How much do the materials cost?
The unit estimates around 100 to 130 dollars for a student-grade kit, and says more than once that professional artist brands are not required and will not advantage you. Budget brush sets are named as suitable, and it encourages recycled, found and second-hand materials throughout the semester.
What goes in the visual diary each week?
The unit asks for at least two pages, with two to four images to a page at around six by eight up to ten by fifteen centimetres, putting your own drawings, images of other artists and a few lines of reflection together on one page so comparison is built into the layout. It also says not to put diary material into your other submissions.
Are the marking criteria different for each task?
No, and that is unusual. One Studio Learning Rubric covers all three graded tasks, with the same five criteria each out of twenty, because the unit takes the view that the qualities of successful creative practice stay the same even when the task changes. Only the focus shifts between tasks.
Questions students ask in each CAEL1001 chapter
- Why does the unit start with things that cannot be seen?
- Because it removes the option of judging a drawing by resemblance on the first day. If there is no object to match, the only available standards are whether the marks are distinguishable from each other and whether they carry the quality you intended, which are the standards the rest of the semester uses. Chapter 01 · Drawing the Unseen: Line, Energy and Invisible Forces
- Why does the paper have to be so large?
- Because a drawing you can reach across without moving keeps the body out of it. At A1 or larger you have to step, lean or crouch to finish a mark, which makes your position part of the drawing. The unit allows two A2 sheets taped together or butcher's paper if you do not have a single sheet. Chapter 02 · Performative and Gestural Drawing
- What happens if I outline first and then shade?
- You get a drawing where every edge is equally hard, including the edges where a curved surface simply turns away from the light, and it reads flat at a distance. The activity sheet says directly not to do it. If you already have, work the darks up until the line stops being the strongest thing on the page. Chapter 03 · Light and Tone: Form Without Outline
- What is the difference between chance and just not deciding?
- A stated procedure. Chance in this unit means a rule set in advance that somebody else could check and apply, such as requiring every fragment to bridge two zones of the ground. Not deciding produces the same visual randomness with nothing to describe afterwards, and the reflection has nowhere to go. Chapter 04 · Drawing Back into Collage
- Why lay a ground at all instead of drawing normally?
- Because it inverts what is expensive. On white paper dark is work and light is free; on a charcoal ground light is work and dark is free, so the highlights end up deliberately placed rather than left over. It also removes the blank page, which is the thing most people stall in front of. Chapter 05 · Addition and Erasure as Drawing Processes
- Why does the enlargement factor need to be written down?
- Because without it you have two drawings and with it you have an experiment. A stated multiple lets you attribute what changed to the size change rather than to effort or mood, and it gives your reflection something specific to be about. Bigger is not a factor. Chapter 06 · Variable Scale: When Size Changes Meaning
- Is blind drawing just a game?
- No, and the claim underneath it is serious. If a drawing can be made from touch then the marks carried information that never passed through the eye, which contradicts the idea that drawing transcribes vision. One of the practices set this week treats blindness as a creative methodology rather than as a loss. Chapter 07 · Sense and Perception Beyond the Eye
- Where is the line between a drawing and a diagram?
- Not between careful and rough, and not between art and information. The operative difference is whether the marks are governed by a rule you could state and apply to a different object. If they are, you have a system; if not, you have an image. Both are legitimate this week. Chapter 08 · Data, Diagrams and Machine Generated Images
- Why is my colour composition busy and flat at the same time?
- Usually because the values sit in a narrow band, so nothing reads as foreground or background and the eye has no route through the sheet. Photograph it and remove the colour: if it goes uniformly mid-grey, the fix is a wider value range within the palette you already have rather than different colours. Chapter 09 · Colour as a Visual Language
- Can I put my best drawing in both the diary and the project?
- No. The unit is explicit that diary material must not go into the other submissions. Choose one home for the work itself and represent it in the other as documentation, so the diary carries the stages and the reasoning while the project carries the outcome. If you are unsure which side something sits on, ask before the deadline. Chapter 10 · The Visual Diary as a Working Record
- Are the criteria different for each assessment?
- No. The same five criteria apply to the presentation, the diary and the project, and only the emphasis changes: presenting and discussing development, documenting process, and developing and resolving independent work. That means feedback on one task is directly usable on the next two. Chapter 11 · Reading the Studio Learning Rubric
- I have no idea for the project. Where do I start?
- In the work you already have. Lay every sheet out and look for a repeat rather than a favourite: something you did more than once without being told to, possibly in different weeks and different media. That is what a direction looks like from the outside, and it is easier to find in evidence than to invent. Chapter 12 · The Self-Directed Creative Project
How to prepare for the assessments
Treat this unit as a set of methods to acquire rather than a set of drawings to hand in, because that is how it is marked: the same five criteria are applied to all three graded tasks, and four of the five reward development over time rather than a single good sheet.
(1) Start the visual diary in week 1 and keep it at two pages a week, since it is worth 25 per cent in its own right and is also the evidence for three other criteria. (2) Understand that 35 per cent is decided in week 6 from work made in weeks 1 to 5, so the first studio class is already assessment preparation and studio presentations cannot be extended.
(3) Photograph every stage of every piece, because process is assessed and a finished sheet cannot show it. (4) Learn the two sentences the rubric actually rewards: a decision with its result, its limit and the next test; and a material choice set against the alternative you did not take.
(5) Read the Studio Learning Rubric in week 2 rather than the night before week 6, and use the week 6 feedback on the diary and the project, since the criteria do not change. (6) Keep everything, including the pieces that failed, labelled with why they failed.
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