Part 2-Make a Mark: 10 Creative Set Design Sketching Starters

I’ve learned over the years that the quickest way to free students up is simply to get them making marks. The more we treat sketching as thinking rather than “drawing a perfect stage,” the more playful and inventive their ideas become.

Here are ten of my go-to activities. They’ve grown out of real classrooms — sometimes messy, often noisy — but they work because they help students relax, take risks, and start seeing space as something they can shape.

1. Start Big, Stay Loose

Give everyone a sheet of A1 paper and a stick of charcoal. Two minutes. No rubbing out.It’s always chaotic at first — lots of nervous laughter — but something magical happens when they realise it doesn’t have to be neat. They start feeling the space instead of outlining it.

2. Drawing the Feeling of a Scene

Ask: “What would a joyful stage look like? What would loneliness feel like in shape or light?” The results are often abstract, but students start to understand that set design is about emotion, not furniture placement.

3. Sketch the Gaps

I learned this from a visiting designer. Set up boxes or stools and get students to draw only the spaces between them. It’s amazing how they begin to see the stage differently — negative space becomes part of the design language.

4. Tiny to Giant

Sometimes I hand out postage-stamp-sized squares of paper and say, “Design your dream set — really small.”Then we blow them up onto A2 sheets. Scaling up a tiny sketch keeps the spontaneity alive while forcing them to make bold compositional choices.

5. Mood Board Moments

Give each group a mood board: texture, colour, maybe a single word. Their task? Capture the mood in a sketch. The conversation that follows is gold — students start linking colour, material and story without realising they’re doing visual analysis.

6. Draw the Sound

Put on a piece of music and let them respond with marks. Percussion becomes jagged lines, strings turn into soft curves. Later, we talk about how sound can influence rhythm and shape on stage.

7. Finding Stages in Real Life

We sometimes head into the corridor or playground with sketchbooks and imagine a performance happening there.It reminds students that theatre can live anywhere — a staircase, a doorway, a bench. They begin to see the world as a series of potential stages.

8. Shadows and Light

Switch off the lights, keep a desk lamp on, and sketch the shadows cast by random objects. Suddenly they’re thinking like lighting designers — noticing contrast, silhouette, and atmosphere.

9. Tape It Out

Masking tape on the floor makes an instant stage. Once students walk through it, they understand scale in a way no drawing can teach. Sketching it afterwards helps them capture perspective and space.

10. The 360° View

Challenge them to sketch a simple stage from the front, side and above. It sounds technical, but it’s actually a great conversation starter about how the audience sees the world we build.

Why These Work

None of these sketches are about producing a “final design.” They’re about thinking visually — getting students to respond to atmosphere, movement and story. Once they stop worrying about neatness, the ideas start to flow.

“Sketch to explore, not to impress.”

🌟 Next in the Series

Next week’s post — Make a Mark: 10 Creative Costume Design Starters — moves from space to character, exploring how sketching can help students imagine who a character is, not just what they wear.

#MakeAMark #SetDesign #StageDesign #Scenography #SketchingTheStage #CreativeClassroom #DesignThinking #DramaTeacherResources