In our classroom, our drawing mannequins are pretty old and have a hard time twisting and turning into unique poses like they used to; because of these quirks, a group of past students named our mannequins 'Grandma Charlotte'. While this name is adorable and makes the mannequins even more lovable, it also gives our students an understanding of how gentle they need to be when posing the mannequins. With the objective of practicing observational drawing skills, we took Grandma Charlotte and all of her elderly drawing mannequin friends on a vacation outside. We then took reference photos of the mannequins on their outdoor adventure to draw using a full value range of graphite pencils and kneaded erasers. Throughout this lesson we practiced photography skills, observational drawing skills, qualities of realism, training our eyes to see details and translate them onto paper, gained knowledge and experience with professional art making materials, and grew our confidence as artists! These students took breathtaking reference photos to draw from and truly outdid themselves with their final artworks.  Â