this may surprise you but i only started
to draw
when i was in my late 30s until then i
basically hadn't done a drawing at all
since i was a kid
but in the last 20 years or so i filled
over a hundred sketchbooks i don't know
the exact number but
there's been a lot of them so let me
tell you a bit about
how i went from zero to 100
with a few ideas that you can absolutely
use yourself
to draw more and better
filling 100 sketchbooks wasn't my goal
when i started out i just
wanted to get back to drawing
and i wanted to find a way to fit it
into my life
my life was really busy i bet yours is
too
i had a little kid i had a wife i had a
very demanding job
and so i had to fit drawing into
whatever little gaps of time i had it
was like finding
a few minutes here and there to check
social media
my other problem was i had no idea what
to draw
i knew i wasn't setting out to be a
professional artist with
gallery shows and all that sort of
business
i just wanted to have fun drawing
and i wanted to not spend a lot of time
worrying
about whether i was drawing the right
stuff or
what that even was so i decided that i
would just
draw the things that i saw around me
every day ordinary things like what i
eat for lunch
my dogs my kids toys garbage cans
parked cars stuff i passed on the way to
work
it didn't have to be anything amazing or
impressive
it would just be a page in my sketchbook
or part of a page when i first started
to draw
i wasn't very good but i didn't let that
bother me and i'll tell you why
one i knew that i had just started
i was just a few min a few months old in
drawing years
or maybe i was just picking up where i'd
left off when i was a little kid
so i gave myself a break i didn't worry
about
whether i had talent or not because
really who cares
i just kept plodding along page by page
the second thing was i really felt good
when i drew i felt relaxed i felt calm
in the zone
time flew by i felt energized
and relaxed at the same time like you do
after a good workout session
maybe you've had that feeling doing
something that you love
even if you weren't super great at it
it really didn't matter whether what was
on the page was
great art no more than it mattered
if i was ready for the olympics each
time i went to the gym
i had this annoying voice in my head
you probably have something like it in
your own head
and it kept trying to interfere with my
progress
by doubting me or asking me
why i was wasting time doing this thing
that i sucked at
and i would say to the voice just let me
finish
this one page in this sketchbook and
then we can talk about it
and if the voice said the page sucked
well
then i just say i know but i promise
i'll turn the page and i'll do
a way better drawing on the next one if
you'll just
let me finish this page
i kept things simple at first a basic
black roller ball pen that i took from
the supply closet at work
a simple sketchbook that could take
abuse
and it did get abused because i carried
my sketchbook
everywhere with me wherever i went it
was in my bag
it was on my lap on the subway it was on
the table when i had lunch
i even brought it to meetings i kept it
by my side when i watched tv
and i even did a drawing last thing
before i turned the lights out
i was recording everything that i did
in pictures but also in little notes
and captions my sketchbook was becoming
a journal a record of my life
again it didn't matter if the drawings
were great or not
but they all had great meaning to me
i had fun making them and they inspired
me
to keep going after a month or so i'd
filled one sketchbook
and i started on the next and soon i had
a small shelf of sketchbooks and i
started adding
some other pens a gray brush marker
so i could study shading and then a
different gray
and eventually i added one color i think
it was green
and then another and after a couple of
years i started trying out
watercolors and colored pencils
all kinds of stuff and i wasn't great at
any of these new media
when i started but i'd learned stuff as
i kept
recording my life and it became another
type of fun to have
it didn't matter if i was just coloring
in like a little kid at first
in the time i got more sophisticated
but what really mattered what what was
enjoying
the process keeping the habit going
viewing art as a fun part of my life
in time i got more and more confident in
the lines that i drew
and i discovered that i could draw
anything
people animals cars fruit
buildings machines planes it was all the
same process of looking carefully and
drawing
slowly until i understood what i was
drawing line by line
page by page and eventually i filled
shelves and shelves with sketchbooks of
all sizes
and they're a great record of our years
together
i can flip on open and be transported
back
to the time that i drew them some of my
drawings are
pretty good and some of them are kind of
awkward
but most of them are just fine just like
the days of my life some good
some bad all worth doing
now i have all these sketchbooks which
is cool
but what's cooler is all that i've
learned
and experienced over the years of making
art
and the pleasure and the fun
and the lessons that it's brought me you
want to try it
just get any sketchbook any pen and draw
whatever is in front of you right now
and then later today
turn the page and do it again and in
time
you'll have filled 100 sketchbooks too
and you'll have found
a great way to spend the rest of your
time on earth
making art