One of the saddest things I hear creative people say, usually with a soft regretful sigh, “Oh, I wish I could learn to draw!”
My friends, you absolutely can and should!
Here is a brief slew of reasons to draw: it helps you relax, improves memory and concentration, induces a ‘flow state’, improves manual and visual dexterity, can help you communicate across language barriers, helps you understand the world around you, and keeps a person out of trouble!
I challenge you to re-think your assumption that drawing requires much innate talent. It is not so different than writing, a skill most of us continue to be taught to be at least proficient at throughout our entire eduction. For whatever reason, our educational system abandons the importance of art skills in order to focus on other stuff and many people who enjoyed drawing simply stop because they were never encouraged how to get beyond the skill level they had around 9 or 10 years old.
Now that I have offered you my thinking challenge: I dare you to draw! I find daring someone so much more powerful than offering a suggestion, it could be my own mental health issues but perhaps you share them too?
While there are many ways to learn, my absolute favorite is the book
There ya go, I dare you! I know you can do it, if you just do the exercises. You even have my permission to skip some of the science-y/theoretical stuff… some of it feels a bit dated (though fascinating), but the meat is in doing the exercises.
Now, if you need something to do to help challenge those limiting beliefs thanks for coming to this dude’s Ted Talk.
