Practice Drawing This!

#206 - This Prevented Me From Drawing!

#205 - A Useful Definition Of The Word Art

Before the nineteenth century, there wasn’t even such a thing as Art. People who made paintings or sculptures were craftsmen. They were organized in guilds where masters taught apprentices the skills required to perform those crafts.

#204 - Books Feed The Brain

It’s not an exercise but rather a little game you can play every day!

#203 - This Week: A New Drawing Game And Musing On The Nature Of Future Phones And The Effect It Will Have On Drawing

I have a confession to make. I program too much and draw too little. Programming is addictive for me. But the activities are not unrelated. I program tools that help me practice drawing better.

#202 - This Is What I Learned About YOU (and me)

Just from being on the Discord server!

You design your own curriculum! You have your own ideas about what you want to achieve, what exercises you need to do, and you mostly go online to look for information, tips, tutorials, but it is all in service of fitting in to the curriculum you are designing for yourself.

#201 - Artists Should Draw Together More

The coolness of not drawing alone.

It is nice to be among people where desired behavior is normal behavior.

#200 - The Making Of Things That Last Forever

Will our work last over time?

We have an urge to survive, to become immortal, and art has that promise. We remember a selection of works made in the past for various reasons: they were made from sturdy materials, still resonate with us, or teach us how to do things. We remember them for that, and they make the creator immortal. The artist left something lasting on this planet.

#199 - Drawing And ... Competitive Swimming

What swimming exercises can teach you about designing drawing exercices.

I love these exercises that anyone can do, from beginner to pro level.

#198 - The Rise Of The Artist APP

A new way of learning for artists?

There is something interesting happening at the moment: educational sites are coming out with APPs that help artists practice drawing, and I want to talk about that a bit.

#197 - When You Draw Really Slowly, You Get To Control The Movement Much Better While Still Training Your Muscle Memory

One interesting training method it mentioned was to make the motions you had to perform slower.

#196 - 14 Things To Consider When Choosing A Pen

Try different pens and see what works for you. Also, you may find yourself holding a collection of pens you enjoy working with, and you may use different pens for drawing outside or in your studio.

#195 - Why You Should Also Write

A weekly writing habit that is beneficial to visual artists.

A good habit is to sit once a week, maybe during the weekend, and to reflect on your plans for last week, what you did, how it went, and how to process that and come up with plans for the coming week, using what you learned. What worked, and what didn’t? What do you want to keep doing? What needs to change?

#194 - Why You Should Consider Slowing Down

Slow down. Look slowly. Draw. And then draw it again. A dozen times. For a few hours.

#193 - I Maketh Technology For Thee, Not For Me

On Artificial Intelligence and other tech you should stay away from.

I have resisted writing about Artificial Intelligence (AI). I had written several articles for this newsletter, but I decided against publishing them because, for one, the articles tend to amount to predicting the future, and no one can predict the future. Also, I risked cluing in the tech bros on what they were doing wrong.

#192 - Develop Better As An Artist By Working In Private And Not Showing Everything Online

The online world tempts us to show everything we make, and getting more views is the reward for publishing in volume. But for the development of artists, it is healthier to do a lot in private.

#191 - What If You Discover You Have Been Doing Something Wrong For A Long Time - Do You Really Have To Re-Learn To Draw?

He was the greatest golf player of all time, and yet he found himself having to re-learn golf.

#190 - Learning To Draw, Kids Have An Unfair Advantage

They might copy a Spiderman drawing from a comic, or they may have drawn comic pages themselves. And it probably wasn’t good yet. But they didn’t see that, didn’t notice it, and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

#189 - Being Shunned From An Industry Can Be A Blessing In Disguise

Try to break into industries you want to work in. But if you find reasons you can not break in and are adequately trained, you might get lucky and stumble into a lucrative new field no one else has found yet.

#188 - What Artists Can Learn From Dating Apps

When it comes to beauty! Not dating!

And as soon as you deviate from realism, it becomes a matter of taste. And some people will not like it as much, and some will utterly adore and be in love with it.

#187 - Never Worry About People Coming Up With The Same Idea

Or stealing your idea, for that matter.

They all started from the same prompt and ended up somewhere radically different.

#186 - The Counter-Intuitive Way To Figure Out Which Creative Direction You Should Take

Finding your artistic strengths this way.

But it might be a good idea to turn that around: given a specific activity, do I have natural advantages?

#185 - The Thing That Makes You Different Can Make You Valuable

One thing large corporations get wrong.

Don’t be replaceable. Try to create your unique way of doing things. If there is demand for it, you are not easy to replace.

#184 - When It Comes To Making Art, Which Is More Important, Craft, Or Self-Expression?

The answer is yes.

Self-expression without craft leads to works that are not easy to understand.

#183 - Why Comparing Yourself To Other Artists Is HarmFul For Artists, But Being Inspired By Great Art Is Not

Your work will fall short. You see all the mistakes in your work and how amazing their work is. It can be demoralizing.

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