I was sitting on the floor of a small home in Kolkata, northern India, where I’d be staying for the next three months. I had my tabla ready in front of me. I had no idea what to expect. Jayanta, my new tabla teacher, had just seated himself opposite me. He didn’t speak a word
Drawing Exercise: Sight Size Block in
Last week, I posted about why I think accuracy training is so useful for realist artists. You can read that post here. One of the comments on that post came from someone who was a little put out that I hadn’t actually added any accuracy training exercises. Well, this site is pretty thick with drawing,
Meditations on a well-used pencil
Let me just get this out of the way first: Two weeks ago, I had a heart attack. Sorry, I know that sounds a bit melodramatic. But I didn’t even know it at the time. For the rest of the following week, I thought I had a chest infection and just needed to take it
Gratitude – What Almost Dying Taught Me About How To Live
A few weeks ago, I began to feel some pain in my abdomen and lower back. Being busy, and not wanting to interrupt my life and my work, I ignored it, thinking it might go away. Just in case you’re wondering, that’s never a good plan. It didn’t. After a few weeks, it got too
What a Little Boy Taught Me About Achieving The “Impossible”
We were sitting in the doctor’s office, listening to his description of a little boy and our hearts were sinking more with every minute. For us, this was the culmination of a three year process to adopt our first child, a process that had been fraught with frustration and doubt. And now this doctor, with
How To Get Better at Painting – Without Painting Anything
John Wooden died in 2009. But if you’re a basketball coach today, you’re still living in his shadow. And for good reason. Wooden’s record as a basketball coach for UCLA remains unmatched. He was notorious for his attention to detail, down to training his players how to put on their socks and lace their shoes correctly. He wrote
Lessons Learned From a Failed Daily Drawing Habit
For some time now, I’ve been keeping a daily drawing habit going. Without doubt, it’s been one of the most positive things I’ve done. Some of the benefits of it aren’t so obvious. One of the most valuable things that this habit gives me is peace of mind. When I don’t paint or draw for
Forget Inspiration
In the broad scheme of things, creativity is a pretty recent idea. In fact, the first use of the word ‘create’ in English was in 1589, by George Puttenham, author of The Arte of English Poesie. Before that, individual creativity just wasn’t a thing. Even for visual artists. Our contemporary obsession with individual expression and
The Truth about Seeing – And Why it Makes Drawing so Hard
When you’re starting out learning to draw – and actually, even when you’ve been going for a while – drawing even halfway accurately can seem incredibly difficult. No matter how you try, your drawing just doesn’t look like your subject. The flower is a different shape. The portrait looks like a different person. The hand
What we did in July – Creative Triggers Monthly Drawing Practice Challenge
A few weeks ago, I posted some simple instructions for a drawing exercise that will help you to see more deeply, to focus more effectively, and to build a closer connection with nature through your drawing. Today, I want to show you some of the results of that exercise: As part of Creative Triggers, my
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