I’d like to practice drawing animals that aren’t cute! Or practice drawing them in a less cute way. But maybe that’s just my thing haha. I do enjoy it! I think what I mean is to maybe be more patient and considered in my pieces.
I really love this article — thank you!!! Setting small goals for myself I think will really help me enjoy the process more, rather than stressing over creating the perfect sketch or feeling like I have to show “progress”!
I love your approach, I am definitely going to experiment with goal setting! I think currently my goal is to practice simplifying a scene as much as possible and not trying to reflect all the tiny details. Some of my experiments are trying to grasp the feeling of the landscape with as few brush strokes as possible. Thanks a lot for sharing your wonderful sketches!
Sometimes nature or life will interfere with your sketch and at the time maybe you don’t like it but it can change your mindset so you have to improvise and often later you love what happened.
It's all about our mindset before beginning, right? I have so many things I want to practice that sometimes that is my biggest issue, so at the moment I'm focusing on subjects, this month is trees. I've been sketching trees in different ways, with different materials, ultimately my goal is to find how I like to capture trees. What have been your goals lately?
You are inspiring me to go out and find an urban sketching group. I used to draw in cafes quite a lot but have got lazy recently. I love the harbour sketch you have drawn on a grey day and made it into the happiest of paintings. Art always beats the weather and can make the mood of the day better, which is exactly what we need in the UK.
I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing! I often sketch to capture a sense of place, play with scale, capture something humorous in the everyday that I have seen. It's great to have a plan at the beginning. It takes the pressure off and helps me get on with it.
This is such great advice: to set intentions before you create so that you're not expecting to make something perfect! I've written about doing a similar thing (setting intentions) when working on my graphic memoir because I just needed to make progress, not make perfection. But this post helps me connect how valuable that approach is for individual sketches/pieces as well.
I just got round to reading this piece today, and these are such practical, useful observations and suggestions. Tiny, incremental shifts make the biggest difference, right? I think I might find 'why do this' a bit of an overwhelming, existential sort of question, but just add 'today', and it becomes soooo much more digestible. I love that idea of asking 'why am I doing this, today?' each time.
Also though: I especially enjoyed these sketches. I think your cinema sketch achieved MUCH more than a just-relax-at-the-end-of-the-week. To me that is a study of perspective and colour, and the way you use bold colour and line to balance out that composition is really great. I also REALLY love the way the red shutters on your row house sketch break out from the insistent flatness. Yay drawing!!
I’d like to practice drawing animals that aren’t cute! Or practice drawing them in a less cute way. But maybe that’s just my thing haha. I do enjoy it! I think what I mean is to maybe be more patient and considered in my pieces.
Very helpful suggestions to help reduce anxiety/fear of making mistakes for freer art making:). Thank you!!
I really love this article — thank you!!! Setting small goals for myself I think will really help me enjoy the process more, rather than stressing over creating the perfect sketch or feeling like I have to show “progress”!
I love your approach, I am definitely going to experiment with goal setting! I think currently my goal is to practice simplifying a scene as much as possible and not trying to reflect all the tiny details. Some of my experiments are trying to grasp the feeling of the landscape with as few brush strokes as possible. Thanks a lot for sharing your wonderful sketches!
Sometimes nature or life will interfere with your sketch and at the time maybe you don’t like it but it can change your mindset so you have to improvise and often later you love what happened.
It's all about our mindset before beginning, right? I have so many things I want to practice that sometimes that is my biggest issue, so at the moment I'm focusing on subjects, this month is trees. I've been sketching trees in different ways, with different materials, ultimately my goal is to find how I like to capture trees. What have been your goals lately?
You are inspiring me to go out and find an urban sketching group. I used to draw in cafes quite a lot but have got lazy recently. I love the harbour sketch you have drawn on a grey day and made it into the happiest of paintings. Art always beats the weather and can make the mood of the day better, which is exactly what we need in the UK.
Very useful tips.
Waouw ! Incredible post! I love it. I note your point of vue for myself.
How inspirant! Thank you🤩
I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing! I often sketch to capture a sense of place, play with scale, capture something humorous in the everyday that I have seen. It's great to have a plan at the beginning. It takes the pressure off and helps me get on with it.
Great suggestions for setting yourself up for sucess!
I once dropped my pencil sharpener and it bounced down a rocky seashore edge to who knows where. I now carry a propelling pencil as a backup.
This is such great advice: to set intentions before you create so that you're not expecting to make something perfect! I've written about doing a similar thing (setting intentions) when working on my graphic memoir because I just needed to make progress, not make perfection. But this post helps me connect how valuable that approach is for individual sketches/pieces as well.
I just got round to reading this piece today, and these are such practical, useful observations and suggestions. Tiny, incremental shifts make the biggest difference, right? I think I might find 'why do this' a bit of an overwhelming, existential sort of question, but just add 'today', and it becomes soooo much more digestible. I love that idea of asking 'why am I doing this, today?' each time.
Also though: I especially enjoyed these sketches. I think your cinema sketch achieved MUCH more than a just-relax-at-the-end-of-the-week. To me that is a study of perspective and colour, and the way you use bold colour and line to balance out that composition is really great. I also REALLY love the way the red shutters on your row house sketch break out from the insistent flatness. Yay drawing!!
This is such great advice! Thank you Nino! Recently my sketching goals have been about exploring the weight of my lines
Such good advice, Nino. And well put. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
You are absolutely right!