I did a long interview to be featured in this cool (FREE) online program, starting April 21st.
Sign up and check it out. Why not? After all— it’s free. It’s cool. It’s inspiring. And I am just the first of dozens of cool, inspiring, free speakers.
We are SUPER excited to announce our newest course, Stretching, is open for enrollment right now. Classes begin in a week!
We are also open for enrollment for Beginning, Seeing, and Storytelling. These kourses will begin every few weeks over the month ahead.
To get a preview of all the courses and to enroll, just visit sketchbookskool.com.
We are also very excited that all of our klasses* will now take place in our very own Sketchbook SKOOL HOUSE. Our programming team have built a lovely new environment for our classes which is easy to use and highly responsive. Our servers are now all over the world so you can get your videos and comments faster than ever.
The Skool House is also home to our new Student Union. This is a gathering place for everyone in the SBS community. Places to talk, share work, meet with others who live nearby or who have similar interests. There are even special groups for teachers designers, architects and more. The Student Union is open right now, so even if your courses doesn’t begin right away, you can still join the party.
All of our courses (including membership in the Student Union) are still priced at just $99*.
We hope to see you in klass!
*If you took previous semesters of Sketchbook Skool on Ruzuku, you will continue to have access to them in the future on Ruzuku.
**Due to recent changes in EU tax laws covering online courses, we are now required to add additional VAT for all our European students. Sorry!
What if you could go back in time — and talk to an earlier version of yourself?
Let’s say that after years (decades?) of struggle and self-denial, you have finally allowed yourself to be creative. After all that self-flagellation, you have started drawing, painting, writing, singing, tap dancing … just as you have always dreamt of doing for years.
Think back on the person you were when all this self-defeating behavior began. How you felt about yourself and the world.
Think back on all those things that prevented you from getting to where you are now. All the ways you sabotaged yourself. All the classes you signed up for but never attended. All the money you wasted on art supplies you never used. All the sneers, the indifference, the judgement. All the vile things your monkey muttered in your ear to prevent you from starting a creative habit.
Next, think about the things that made a difference in your turnaround. What lit the fuse? What helped you blast through all those obstacles you’d arrayed in your path?
And finally, how do you feel today, now that you have finally given yourself permission to be the artist you truly are, that you were all along, but couldn’t see?
Next, create a time machine and travel back in it. Go to that person you were and take him or her out for a cup of coffee.
What will you say?
(P.S. And, if you don’t yet feel you have made it to full-fledged, liberated-artist mode, tell us what you’d say anyway. You know what you need to hear.)
Please share your conversations in the comments area below.
Recently I was invited to participate in a lovely series called “The Original” Documented Life Project™”. Guest artists are asked to document their process in making a piece. I was emailed the following assignment:
“The theme for this month is ‘MAKING YOUR MARK (DOODLES & MARK MAKING). The art challenge for this week is ‘AS A FOCAL POINT’, and the prompt is ‘COMING INTO FOCUS”
I’m not always awfully good at following assignments so I just sort of did what I do. I hope they like it.
* I love Kevin’s latest.
What if success meant living a life of purpose?
What if your high school and college educations were designed to help you do one thing: to discover what you are truly good at and what you love to do? That instead of emphasizing test scores and grades and cutthroat placements in prestigious universities and high starting salaries, the system acknowledged that we are all born with different skills and abilities, needs and wants. And that we all need a mission to guide us.
What if we said you don’t have to be good at math or science if you have no natural aptitude, that you might be better at building something with your hands than constructing a paragraph? That we will help you discover if you are more visually oriented, or more intuitive about people, or better at concrete thinking or abstractions or that you were born to be a great chef or a gardener or a cab driver or a banker. What if that was the whole purpose of your education — to help you lead a life that perfectly fits who you are?
What would a planet full of people working with passion and conviction look like?
What if it was the norm to pause every decade or so and assess whether that purpose still fits you, whether you need some variation or specialization, new skills or new experiences? What if was expected that every major decision you made was measured against the yard stick of your purpose and your mission, not your salary or your retirement package? That each person was expected to be true to their nature and their passion. That each of us did what we did to genuinely be of service to the greater good. Not because it was tax-deductible but because it felt right and part of who we are.
Would things unravel? Would certain jobs never be filled? Or might we discover that some people were genuinely born to enthusiastically empty septic tanks or write parking tickets or run hedge funds, to do things that now people seem to do only for money? Would we still dread Mondays? Or would we work with passion and conviction, doing more and better things than we could conceive of today.
What if everyone in our society did what they did because they loved it, were born to it, were passionate about it would do it just as a hobby? What if we all lived authentically according to our talents and drives? What would a planet full of people working with passion and conviction look like?
What would it take for that to happen? An act of Congress? An act of God? Or a commitment made by each of us as we lay in bed and pondered the road ahead. A commitment to who you truly are.
Could you make one?
What if:
I just wanted to tell you that, though I have not been very active here of late, it’s mainly because Koosje and Morgan and I have been beavering away on several important projects we will soon reveal. I think they will please you. I sure hope so.
I also want to thank you so much for supporting the release of Art Before Breakfast. You have managed to thrill my publisher into wanting me to immediately do other exciting new things — which I will tell you more about as they gel.
Meanwhile, we are waiting for our container ship-full of freshly printed copies to be unloaded onto the Los Angeles docks (which just concluded a long and bad-for-books-and-other-goods strike) and soon the shortage of Arts B4 Breakfast will end (I myself have but a single dog-eared copy)
Also, you (but not my monkey) will be heartened to know that my manuscript for “Shut Your Monkey: How to control your inner critic and get more done” is in my (other) publisher’s hands and will be hitting the shelves this autumn. Thanks you everyone who sent me their monkey tales. They added delicious fodder to my book.
In sum, Spring is finally springing here in New York and many lovely new things are blooming. Details to follow.
I would love your help.
I am working on my next book. It is called ‘Shut Your Monkey‘ and is about the little voice in your head that criticizes and scolds and warns and limits you. It especially plagues creative people.
If you are familiar with this voice, would you mind sending me stories about how it has impacted you, how it may have stopped you from taking a particular path or interrupted your work.
I AM MOST INTERESTED IN SPECIFIC STORIES OF HOW THE MONKEY EFFECTED YOU, not just strategies for fighting it.
I would be most grateful to learn about your experiences and will protect your anonymity if you want me to.
Please email me your stories to danny@dannygregory.com.
Thanks!!
Danny Gregory 