University professors from institutions in the USA and Dubai hosted an online workshop in creativity and design thinking called “Sketchy People” for their students. We hoped to learn how to engage our students beyond their respective institutions and classrooms by connecting them with students from other institutions who have similar educational goals and interests.

Using the online collaboration website Miro.com these students from different geographic locations completed lessons in drawing, creative writing, and typography together in real time in a virtual design studio setting. Just as they would in a physical design studio, students were able to see how others responded to different writing and drawing prompts and provide each other support and feedback.

Breaking outside of institutional boundaries with online technology for this event resulted in an extraordinary outpouring of creativity and engagement. Drawing inspiration from artist and author Lynda Barry’s book “Syllabus,” these students wrote and read aloud original stories as well as made drawings based upon the stories that they heard each other tell. In under two hours each student participant produced numerous drawings along with several written pieces and typographic examples.

This “Sketchy People” online learning event permitted colleagues separated by distance to reconnect and work with each other’s students through an innovative team-teaching approach while enabling their students to meet new people and see new ideas in action. Because the methods and communication tools utilized in the workshop are freely available to educators, future virtual workshops are easily scalable and replicable

For years I’ve watched other artists post videos of themselves working, often in videos that have been sped up for the sake of time. I have never made such a video until today. Here’s a video of me using Adobe Illustrator to draw a vector image of Rodney Dangerfield.