Examples, instruction, advice, recommendations, and more.
I just write an essay and made a little video for one of my publishers, Chronicle Books. Check it out!
The awesome new trailer for my awesome new book! (Thank you, Manny!)
You can see even more cool stuff about my book on
Preorder yours today from your favorite bookseller:
And please feel free to share news of my new book with
This has been a wild and unpredictable year that has taken me around the world and home again. I sat down this morning with my calendar and recalled the best moments.
A key to successful learning is to have a motive. Why do I want and need to learn this?
When we first started to learn things, it was to survive in the world. Learning how to walk, how to eat solid food, how to talk, and how to play with others were hard but essential lessons. When we first got to school, we had to learn things because, well, mainly because we were told to do so by adults and because everyone else in the room was doing it too. We didn’t really understand the reason for learning what we are being taught but we did it because it some big person told us too. Eventually, some grown-ups inspired and excited us in the classroom and then we were doing it because it was fun and we wanted them to like us even more. Those kinds of teachers are the ones that have the power to change our lives.
When we are grownups, why do we want to learn things? Generally, because the new skills will help our careers or enable us to accomplish some useful goal like cooking dinner or programming the DVR.
So why do people want to learn to draw? And how do we help them to persevere?
So why do people want to learn to draw? And how do we help them to persevere? People want to learn to draw generally because is a skill that they felt was potential in them for a long time but they were never able to focus on or get proper guidance to fulfill that potential. “I’ve always wanted to draw,” people tell me. But there were huge obstacles that sat in their way — the largeness of the task, the enormous commitment required, and most of all the fear of failure. This stems from the sense that while others may be good at this, you were not born with the talent or ability to ever accomplish even a basic level of drawing ski
ll yourself.
So the first and most important task is to give people back their sense of power. To make them think that they can do it, to show them that that ability does reside within them, and that if they put in a bit of work it will not be wasted effort. Because there is that sense that the process is magical and that, without that spark of magic, no amount of effort or training will pay off.
As teachers, we have to show them that it is indeed possible. And the key to doing that is to show them that people just like them —novices, frustrated creatives, people born apparently without talent — are able to make progress in the same way.
If you look at Betty Edwards’ classic book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, one of the most notable things in it are the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures. We see accomplished beautiful drawings and next to them the same sort of amateurish fumblings that we are now capable of. The book promises us that, just like these people, we will be able to progress from A to B.
A great way of doing that is by giving people a sense that they are surrounded by like-minded people. Community, is a key part of empowering them. I can tell you over and over why I think you will be able to accomplish this but, unless you trust me, unless you feel I am like you, your inner monkey critic can simply dismiss my expectations and say that I am different from you so my lessons do not apply.
You can buy a book and struggle alone with the exercises, giving up when you hit the first obstacle or disappointing sketch. But when you’re surrounded by thousands of others with the same ambition, the same busy lives, and the same apparently limited talent, you feel like maybe it is possible. And when you have that sense of possibility, the next step is to give you the opportunity to exercise. We need to give you work to do that will be both fun and rewarding. So we need to devise assignments that will fit in with your current life, that will remain interesting and varied, and that will move you one small step at a time, toward the goal of creative empowerment.
When you’re surrounded by thousands of others with the same ambition, the same busy lives, and the same apparently limited talent, you feel like maybe it is possible.
I think it is similar to learn the way we did when we were children, to just enjoy the process, to have fun in the process rather than agonizing over the first meager results. All learning involves work. But it need not feel like work. It should be fun, rewarding, and engrossing in someway.
We have the fantasy that learning a skill is simply a matter of getting access to certain shortcuts. That there is a secret set of tricks that will instantly have us drawing effortlessly and accurately, as if there were secret rules that allowed you to drive a car expertly or shoot a basket expertly. Drawing is a physical skill. Like any other, it takes practice. There are no shortcuts but there are things that will make the effort and time commitment required seem just like fun.
No one of the steps will instantly provide you with extraordinary abilities. But they will build your faith. And that faith means that you will continue to take one small step after another. And fairly quickly you will be able to look back and see how far you’ve come. And that will re-reinforce your faith again so you will continue to work and to move forward.
None of the steps has a magic formula, it just contains inspiration. Because ultimately nobody can teach you to draw — only you can teach yourself. And the way you do it is by believing that you can, and doing the work to develop the skills and the connections in your brain and body to make it so.
Do you want to write? Or do you wanna publish?
Do you want to draw? Or do you wanna shop for art supplies?
Do you want to paint? Or do you wanna gallery?
Do you want to direct? Or do you wannan Oscar?
Do you want to be in a play? Or do you wanna be in a magazine?
Do you want to do? Or do you wanna dream?
I am really inspired by working with Melanie Reim on her klass for Sketchbook Skool. Her loose, fast drawing style and her ways of capturing people in motion is just what I need to loosen up.
Here’s one of the pages I filled waiting with Jenny at the DMV.
A couple of days ago we were invited to attend Sting’s new Broadway show. The music was good, the story and characters less so. During the second act, I pulled out my little Moleskine and a couple of pens. It was so dark I couldn’t seem my book at all and wasn’t sure what I was scrawling. During intermission, I flipped through my pages and, heartened, kept going after the curtain went up again. When I walked out of the theatre, I had the story of the whole evening recorded in my book and my grey cells.
This sort of quick, take-no prisoners kept me fired up and, over the next few days, I drew a bunch of people in the street and from photos too.
Another reminder that — as in rock ‘n’ roll —sometimes speed and volume are just the ticket to loosen you up and silence your inner monkey.
Oh, and that Sketchbook Skool has the power to change your view of the world.
Even if you just work there.
Artist and author Danny Gregory has led a life as colorful as many of his paintings. Formerly creative director at a multinational advertising agency, his journey from “ad man” to “art man” began in his mid-30s when he started sketching the urban surrounds of his native New York.
“I’ve been trying to encourage kids at all ages to feel good about being creative. Little kids are naturally creative and don’t really need a lot of help, but when kids reach late middle school they can start to get anxious about their creativity and feel judgmental about the things they are making,” he noted.
One thing I keep encountering when I talk to people about starting to draw: fear. People are terrified of pens, paper, and brushes. Art is scary.
So I propose we call it something else. Drawing or journaling or sketching or doodling or sketchbooking or testing your pen. I call it ‘art with a small a‘.
Here’s how I look at it.
There are so many things we are willing to do that we know other people do much better. There are all sorts of amazing chefs on TV doing incredible things with scallops and opening four-star restaurants, but we are all still willing to cook some burgers for dinner without being terrified. We don’t say, I just can’t use a microwave, I didn’t go to cooking school.
We may not be ready for the NBA but we’ll toss a basketball around with some buddies. We won’t be headlining at Madison Square Garden or winning any Grammys but we’re all still willing to sing in the shower or whistle while we work. We may not be on the Pulitzer shortlist but we can still write an email or a birthday card. We are just doing it to have fun. Or because it’s an essential part of life. And I think art can be both.
We don’t need to label ourselves chefs, or basketball players, or musicians, or writers. So why does art have to be so different?
If you want a painless, unscary way to start expressing your creativity, sign up for the best semester yet of Sketchbook Skool. Thousands of people who are rusty as barn door hinges are doing it. Join us!
(A somewhat funky video I made in my hotel room in China)
Learning to draw is not like learning to drive. You don’t have to master the fundamentals, take courses, pass tests, put thousands of dollars of equipment at risk. You just have to start.
Drawing isn’t a learned skill so much as it’s a process of discovery that starts with skills you have had since you were a toddler. And that process requires a willingness to stretch and practice, things that can be scary or boring if you approach them with the wrong set of expectations.
One thing that has been reinforced with me over the past few weeks that I have spent drawing with kids is that the most crucial thing is to have fun. If you are all enjoying yourself and slopping ink and paint around, well, you want to keep it doing it. As as you do it, you encounter new situations, you have questions, you want to stretch. And that’s where a decent teacher can step in and show you how to make progress. You also start to feel more comfortable with what you are doing so you are willing to make mistakes and take new risks, and that’s how your adventures to new places begin.
We all need to accept that creativity is not about immediately achieving some sort of awesome finished piece; it’s an exploration of discovery, not a straight-line commute to Perfection.
Of course, this insight isn’t just for junior high. It’s the core idea behind Sketchbook Skool: having new experiences, having fun, exploring with friends, and having opportunities to grow. Speaking of which, the new semester is about to begin. I assume you have already signed up, but if not, get over to our site and enroll.
Danny Gregory 