My whole life, I’ve been interested in drawing birds and animals, and now that I nature journal, capturing their appearance with quick, accurate sketches has become even more important to me. But wild animals don’t hang around long and birds rarely sit still.
Continue reading An Easy Way To Practice Drawing Live Animals
There’s a belief that all the great artists are inspired, that what makes their work wonderful is a brilliant idea or new insight. But this is just a myth. A single moment of brilliance can be blinding to the rest of us, but there’s more to it than that. You can’t make use of inspiration if you don’t know how to use your medium. Great art comes from lots of work, which can be summed up in one word: practice.
Continue reading Waiting for Inspiration? Spend the Time Practicing
Our recent vacation to Utah was an opportunity for me to keep up with my goal of drawing daily, so I carried my nature journal everywhere I went. I drew landscapes, dinosaur tracks, and ancient artifacts, but the most educational session of the trip was the time I spent drawing a common raven (Corvus corax). I learned lots about ravens and one very important thing about drawing.
Continue reading What I Learned by Drawing Ravens
Daily practice pays off.
Drawing practice is a lot more fun when you can use color.
