Drawing Center

1. Look at the object, not at your drawing. Your inner critic will stop you if you give it the opportunity to judge your work. If you look at the object, your brain will do an amazing job of guiding your hand with minimal effort.

2. Seek out geometric shapes of the big picture. Every image can be broken down into fundamental geometric shapes. When we see that big picture, it becomes a lot easier to draw something. For example, to draw a bird, start with the triangles of its beak and wings and the oval of its head, eyes, and body.

3. Draw the outline and don’t focus on the details. People often try to draw the little details perfectly instead of trying to get the gist of the image. It’s like trying to write a perfect sentence when you don’t know what you are writing about yet—it won’t work because the details only make sense in the context of the work as a whole.

4. If “drawing” is too intimidating, feel free to “doodle.” Becoming a good artist is not the goal; using our natural visual gifts to clearly see and understand reality is the goal.