The coolness of not drawing alone. ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ ͏ ‌     ­ This newsletter is about drawing. It goes out every Friday. Want to draw? Then check out my free art flashcards, 3D models, and workbook!

#201 - Artists Should Draw Together More

The coolness of not drawing alone. I enjoyed drawing entire afternoons with other artists for a week, which was great! You see how other artists draw, what materials they use, how large they draw, their process, et cetera. It is nice to be among people who consider it normal to pull out a sketchbook and draw. It is nice to be among people where desired behavior is normal behavior. I’m more apprehensive about starting to draw when among non-artists. They want to see what you drew and judge it. Not so with fellow artists; they know to leave you alone and that you’ll show your work when you’re ready. Plus, you discover you’re just a regular introvert like almost every other artist.

We should have more drink and draws, more sessions where we sit together and draw!

Here is one great almost two-hour long video by Steven Zapata to try with .

It's fun to draw while listening to this video! You feel like you’re hanging out with him and his advice in this video is phenomenal. I found myself agreeing with everything.

Steven Zapata also has lengthy videos where he draws and answers questions and where you can hang out and draw with him.

The online version has the advantage that you can do it at any moment—just start a video. And it’s less scary with other people around you. But life sessions do have the advantage that you hear more people talk and that you get to network.

Urban Sketchers does get-togethers.

It’s a miracle we introverts get together at all, but it is nice when we do. It must be strange for extroverts to see people sitting together, drawing, not saying a word most of the time. Yet you feel part of a community of like-minded souls.

This Week

Two warm-ups were added. They were both inspired by Zefdraws , a YouTube channel you should definitely check out.

Do also consider practicing them by drawing from observation from the 3D models mentioned in the guide first. In order to draw these from imagination, it was useful for me at least to first get a feel for what these typically looked like by copying them from observation from the 3D models.

I also made a 'coil' model. You know the ones, the old phones that had a coil wire? They can make interesting shapes when rotated. I did this partially because the code that generates these traced forms wasn’t actually robust against extreme bending. I thought this was a good test case.

And, staying with the theme of this week, artists should interact more. Someone reached out to me and asked if a 3D model of random boxes on a floor with perspective lines was a possibility. So, naturally... Here it is:

Yours sincerely,

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