Art Instruction Schools - Current Methods

Current Methods

Despite advances in digital art, Art Instruction Schools continues to follow the teaching traditions it established over a century ago, as detailed by Richard Chin, writing in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Tippy the turtle. Spunky the Donkey. Cubby the bear. The Pirate. You've likely seen their faces on late-night TV or in a small ad in the back of a magazine. "Do you like to draw?" they wonder. "Draw me," they urge. For decades, these characters and their kin have tempted talented and not-so-talented doodlers, offering a free art test. The one-sheet flier asks you to sketch "draw me" heads, finish a drawing of a house, answer a few questions. The return address is in Northeast Minneapolis, headquarters of Art Instruction Schools. Since 1914, it has been the home-correspondence school to thousands of would-be painters, cartoonists, illustrators, art directors and animators. Its "draw me" advertisements were once so ubiquitous that they've inspired parodies.

In a time when distance learning involves the Internet and commercial illustration is generated by computers, the concept of a mail-correspondence art school seems like a quaint throwback. But Art Instruction Schools continues to crank out people who know how to draw with pen, pencil or brush, the old-fashioned way. Prospective students still get a visit from one of the school's 100 or so enrollment representatives who roam the country conducting entrance interviews/sales pitches. If you sign up for the $3,485 course, the 27 lessons are sent to you one at a time. You work at your own pace and send your assignments back to the school, where an instructor grades them, makes suggestions and mails them back. If you stick with it for 1½ to two years, you'll cover such fundamentals as shapes, shading, colors, perspective, animal and figure drawing, lettering, cartooning, keylining and fashion illustration. Accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council, the course is worth up to 24 college credits, according to school marketing director Steve Unverzagt. "It's literally an old-school kind of method," he said.

In 2008, Art Instruction Schools uses television commercials to reach prospective students.