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Category: Workshops and classes
Sketchbook Skool – first update
Phew, it’s been a crazy day and loads of people have enrolled in Sketchbook Skool and there have also been all sorts of questions about how it works. To clarify, here’s a video from HQ West.
If all your fears and concerns are allayed, please stop by SketchbookSkool.com for more information and a chance to sign up for our first semester on the theme “Beginnings”.
Welkome to Sketchbook Skool
This may sound selfish but I don’t care.
Art makes my life richer and happier. And I want share that discovery with as many people as I can. The more people I meet who make art and are crazy about it, the more inspired I get to make stuff too.
On Wednesday, I spoke to a group of eighty people in Scottsdale, most of whom had never drawn since grade school. Now, a good number of them have caught the fever to keep an illustrated journal too. It was a day well spent.
I want more days like that. And I want to infect a lot more people with the passion for making art. I can travel around and give workshops and talks and speeches. And I can write more books. I plan to continue doing all those things. But I want more….
I’ve been blogging here for a decade. And I’ve been part of several great Everyday Matters communities, on Yahoo, Facebook, and Flickr. I’ve met hundreds of amazing artists and collaborated with many of them on my books.
And now, finally, thanks to an email exchange with my friend Koosje Koene, I get to be part of one of the most exciting online experiences anyone can have.
Koosje and I have been working with a group of insanely talented sketchbook artists to create an amazing project called Sketchbook Skool. It’s sort of a high-quality online/video art school dedicated to illustrated journaling — to recording everyday life in a little sketchbook, to discovering how beautiful the world is, to getting a deeper sense of meaning and of creative confidence.
Here’s a film about it. You can learn a lot more at the Skool’s website.
Our dream is to bring together people who love to draw and paint and record their lives into one large community and together to discover new habits, techniques, opportunities, friendships, and adventures. It starts today as we open our doors with our first online semester of klasses, taught by six artists who love to teach and share what they know. Hopefully you will join us and deepen your skills and passion, whatever your level of experience so far.
At the beginning of the summer, another group of artists will join us and we will begin the second semester of Sketchbook Skool. We already have commitments from an amazing group, enough to fill the fakulty bench of Term Two. We plan to have four such semesters in the next year — more teachers with more stories, ideas, inspiration to get us all filling a library full of sketchbooks. And we have even bigger dreams beyond….
I know it’s selfish. It’s rare that you get to build a school just so you can take klasses in it with amazing teachers you idolize. Koosje and I think we’ve done just that. We’re lucky . And so are you. You get to join us.
In production.
Teaching used to be a fairly simple business. You get some chalk, a dunce cap, a book with all the answers at the back and you’re in business. In 2014, it seems to be a little more complex.
When I first started thinking about doing online classes, I wanted to make sure they were as exciting and interesting as possible. So, being me and living a couple of miles from Hollywood, I immediately started to go overboard. I started to talk to my friends, many of whom you know and who are among the best sketchbook artists in the world. We decided that it wasn’t enough to just slap together some recycled lessons, a couple of PDFs and some poorly lit snapshots. We wanted to make sumptuous, hilarious, inspirational, instructional films that would get you so fired up you’d have to start drawing night and day. Our inspiration was first of all, Bob Ross, then the Cooking Channel, then National Geographic, and now we’re thinking Spielberg and Peter Jackson.
So while everyone else was drinking eggnog, we have been deep into production.
Tommy and I spent several days in the depths of Brooklyn in production on his klass. Then we turned around and finished up filming my workshop. Meanwhile, Prashant is heading to India to rendezvous with a production team that will capture his insights about watercolors. Koosje is setting up lights and camera in Amsterdam.
Deep in a Minnesota snow bank, Roz is furiously pecking out epic scripts about paper and pens. And next week, I’ll be heading to San Diego to collaborate with Jane on her films.
Meanwhile, an elite team of even more amazing teachers are arrayed around the world, beavering away on the next wave of klasses. More on them soon.
If you want to know more about all of this flurry of activity when it is ready to launch, do sign up for our mailing list. Meanwhile, scrape together your pennies and polish your 3D glasses.
Happy New Year!
Perfect!
I have been mulling over giving an online class since mid-Spring, when a number of people wrote to me to say that they couldn’t come to my workshop in the Berkshires and asked if I’d consider doing something on the Internet instead.
First, I did a bunch of research and talked to friends who are great teachers like Jane LaFazio and Andrea Scher and Brenda Swenson and Roz Stendahl. I had technical concerns and had to figure out the best platform, then I had to decide what the class would be like and about. So I futzed around a lot and made very slow progress, especially for me, a person who tends to barrel into things like a bull in a china shop.
Recently, I got an email from a guy who runs workshops and manages a major teaching platform and he was asking me (well, not really me but anyone on his email list who had expressed some interest in his program but hadn’t gotten around to launching a class) what the hell I was waiting for. His question was about perfectionism, wondering if I was so intent on making the class perfect before I open it up that I might never get around to doing it at all. And he had a point — I do want it to be as good as it can be even though it’s the first time. In fact, because it is, as I assume that if it’s half-assed, no one will be back for the second better one I do, and my ambitions will be thwarted on the launch pad.
Anyway, in needling me about this he said :
“As you sit on the sidelines, waiting for the “right moment”…
People who NEED help are MISSING OUT on your unique information, your potent coaching, your ability to encourage and support, your brilliance.
People are missing out on opportunities to grow, to develop, to learn new skills, to seek happiness…… In Judaism (my heritage), there is a beautiful idea called Tikkun olam, which means “healing the world.” Tikkun olam evokes humanity’s shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world. It gives meaning and purpose to our individual strivings, putting them in service of a greater good.
You could be helping to heal the world.”
Well! That’s a far loftier ambition than I had — I certainly don’t think I am on the verge of healing the world or anything like it. But I acknowledge that every day my class isn’t out there, someone may not be learning whatever the hell it is I have to teach them.
However, I have been thinking about his point in a different context. What happens when one is so fixated on perfection that one never begins? Never begins drawing. Never begins making stuff. Never begins pursuing any sort of passion for fear of not being able to do it incredibly well. Nothing you do will be good enough even for you.Why bother if you can’t be great?
A variation is fiddliness. Constant reappraisal, erasing, tweaking, reconsidering. Taking your drawing into Photoshop and cleaning it up, coloring it, recoloring it, sharing ten versions of it, asking for comments, on and on, never done, never good enough.
I love James Lord’s book on Giacometti in which he describe sitting for a portrait in his studio for weeks which he paints it over and over, only stopping when his gallery owner shows up and forcibly drags it away from him. The book contains reproductions of each day’s work and, honestly, he could have stopped after a day and had a decent painting, but he goes on for ages, always dissatisfied, putting himself down, rethinking the idea, scraping it down again and again. Giacometti was the same with his sculptures, paring away at them so they kept getting thinner and thinner, until they were barely there. Maybe his perfectionism made him great. Or Swiss.
One of the problems with perfectionism is that you think you can conceive the destination before you embark on the journey, that you can plan it all out in advance, and that nothing else can intrude and change the outcome you have conceived. But, first of all, the world doesn’t work that way; unless you are doing something extremely simple and banal, something you can actually hold in your brain all at once, it will invariably intrude and change your well-laid plans. And, secondly, you should welcome that intrusion. The accidents, mistakes, serendipities and ink splatters that the universe throws in your path make your work and your life more interesting. Perfection isn’t organic. It can be constipated and lifeless.
So, be forewarned, my class isn’t going to be perfect. Fat chance of that considering that I am behind it. But I do at least want it to be good, not slapdash and reasonably thought through. So I’m working on it everyday and hope it will be good enough to go soon.
Meanwhile, if you are waiting to make stuff because you haven’t got the perfect pen or book or subject or teacher, get over it. We all make shit every day. If we didn’t, we’d die. Or at least be really cranky.
I Left My Art in San Francisco…
We had a lovely mini-vacation by the Bay, eating all sorts of things and walking for miles and miles. We had amazing ice cream…
…at a place with this for its mascot…
It’s been a bit nippy and drizzly but that didn’t dampen the mood. We bought way too many books and saw so much art everywhere.
We saw all sorts of beautiful street murals in the Mission, including on one of my favorite of all streets, Balmy Alley:
I did see the following on a car’s bumper sticker…
…but then again it was on this car….
Oh, and I gave my talk at the HOW Design Conference about creativity and sketchbooks. At first, I was a little worried about the turn out…
…but ultimately hundreds of people showed up and many came up to say hi afterwards. If you were one of them, I hope you had as much fun in San Francisco as I did.
Tomorrow morning, back to New York. (I’ve done way too much traveling of late.)
I’m on my way to speak in San Francisco
Ill be at the HOW Design Conference, hosted by one of my awesome publishers. I spoke at the conference before, when An Illustrated Life first came out, and it was a wonderful experience.
I will be talking to hundreds of graphic designers about How your sketchbook can open your mind, boost your creativity, and rock your world. I am always amazed at how many creative professionals have forgotten how to draw. I hope to turn them on again.
If you are at the conference, please come up and say hi.
A film about my weekend workshop at Rowe
A couple of weeks ago about forty people joined me for a weekend workshop at the Rowe Center in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. It was a wonderful time as you’ll see in this film. More photos from the weekend are on flickr.
Would you like to have this sort of experience?
Teaching my first workshop — a brief recap
All week-long, I had been running through the things that could go wrong. Rain was foremost on my mind. I imagined 45 of us sitting in a humid wooden dining hall, drawing each others’ feet, like a bunch of overgrown summer campers, praying for this blighted weekend to end. Then I worried about cicadas, crawling out from their 17-year hibernation to drown out my lectures with their screeching. Oh, and may flies are supposedly virulent this time of year in Northern Massachusetts. Them too.
I worried about my ‘students’ too, of course. When I set up a special Facebook group for us and invited them to start drawing in the weeks before the workshop, they began uploading amazingly good sketches which made me sure I had nothing left to teach them. I had been hoping for people who didn’t know how to uncap a pen and instead I had graphic designers and architects and art teachers and people who had been in the EDM community for a decade or more. Gulp.
JJ and I drove up from New York on Friday morning. The weather was perfect and the air smelled of freshly mown grass and late Spring. We parked, unpacked, and headed up to the large wooden building that was to be our HQ for the weekend. Then I discovered an obstacle I hadn’t been imaginative enough to dread — the projector didn’t work. I had several hundred Powerpoint slides and videos I’d made and now I might be reduced to just tap dancing and making stuff up. By dinner time, fortunately, a new projector was in place.
Before dinner we had a little mocktail party and I got to meet the folks who traveled in from all over, some from neighboring spots in Massachusetts, others from far way — Baltimore, Chicago, New Mexico, British Columbia and England.
We had dinner and then trooped up the hill to our classroom. We had arranged rows of chairs and cushions and fans (it was damnably humid and hot) and introduced ourselves. Everyone took a turn talking about their creative wishes and then I lit into my presentation, explaining what I hoped we’d accomplish this weekend, my view of art, my life story, the magic and power of illustrated journaling and more.
After breakfast on Saturday, we started to draw. I explained some basics, we did some exercises and people started to unwind. There were loads of great questions and I managed to choke out some sort of answer to most of them. Our group was wonderful— open minded and enthusiastic— and we struggled long together through contours drawings, negative space, measurements, plumb lines and the like.
We took a break after lunch and I collapsed under a tree. It was exhausting! Meanwhile everyone else seemed full of energy. They drew their sandwiches then hiked into the woods to draw frogs and trees and things.
Mid afternoon, we headed into the town center where the fire department and hauled out their fire engines so we could draw and paint them.
During a brief sunshower, some of us retreated into the fire station.The attic was full of old fire suits and extinguishers and musical instruments and piles of chairs from the local school — an endless treasure trove of stuff to draw.
Others drew the church, the gazebo, the hills and trees, or strolled back up to draw in the barn.
After dinner, I talked about composition and calligraphy and then hauled out my trunks of journals. I brought about fifty different books and we spend the rest of the evening talking and sharing our work.
On Sunday morning, I described what steps people could take next to further develop their creativity and then we shared what we had learned over the weekend. I was amazed and touched at what a profound effect it had on literally everyone as people shared emotional stories about the discoveries that they had made in these short few days.
It was a wonderful experience for me and I realized yet again what a profound effect drawing can have on one’s life, and how developing a creative habit is so important and rewarding.
This is just a brief description of what we experienced. I hope those who were there with me will leave their comments below to round it out further. Also, JJ and I are working on a little film about the weekend that we’ll share with you soon.
More on Drawing in the woods with Danny
To those who will be joining me:
Arthur at the Rowe Center tells me that we have maxxed out at 40 attendees and have 10 additional people on the waiting list. That’s encouraging.
A few random thoughts.
1. I have pretty much worked out how I think the weekend will flow. I’ll give a few slide show/ presentations and some direction on drawing and sketchbooking generally. We’ll do some drawings together inside and then have lots of opportunities to wander around Rowe and draw. We’ll have a number of opportunities to meet and hang out, and to share our work with teach other.
As you know, I’m not really an art teacher but I hope to tell you what I have learned from doing this for (yipes!) more than 15 years, and to inspire you however I can. I imagine there will be a lot of opportunities to talk and ask questions and, as I assume I will forget to cover all sorts of things when I do my slide shows, I’ll be counting on you to provoke me with questions that will provide additional useful answers.
2. I plan to bring a bunch of my sketchbooks to pass round. If you have any projects you’d like to bring along to share, please do.
3. We might set up a flickr group or continue this Facebook group after the weekend so we can keep sharing images from our sketchbooks if we like.
4. We’re also going to bring some copies of my last few books in case you want to round out your library or have me inscribe them for you or just spread the word among all the people who will be so impressed by your newly developed drawing skills and want to get in on the action too.
5. Someone brought up the possibilities of mayflies bugging us as they are common in Vermont in Spring (hence the name “May”flies) and could drift across the border to Mass. Arthur assures me they will be gone by the time we arrive and if not he will stand over us with a swatter. Just in case, you could bring light-colored clothing and some repellant. I am a worrier but I don’t plan to worry about mayflies. I will however be armed for bear.
6. The experience of putting this weekend together has been fun and creative and I think I will try to do this more often, maybe in other beautiful places.
If you have any suggestions of specific sites for future drawing workshops (anywhere in the world), please let me know.
Danny Gregory 