Currently Browsing: internal critic 23 articles
Sometimes Leftover Paint Colors Give You Zombies
New readers to the blog might not realize at first that a lot of what I post is a sort of cautionary tale. I’m trying to get across that sketching and painting needs to be fun, if you’re going to continue. And by showing you some of the missteps I make I hope to help […]
The Freedom of Quick, Loose Sketches for Your Drawing Skills
Over the last 35 years and hundreds of students have confessed to me that they “don’t have time to sketch,” or that they “were physically too ill to sketch.” I always respond that you can always find time, and even if ill you can get something down on paper that will be useful to you […]
In Context: Everything Included on a Journal Page—How Do I Find It?
In my last two posts I wrote about just getting stuff down on the page. There’s one drawback to this approach if you have a noisy internal critic who likes to interrupt you and tell you what a mess of things you’re making. If you have 10 things on a page, many of which might […]
Sketching on Any Old Paper You Have At Hand
Sometimes we can get into our heads. We can spend time telling ourselves all the reasons we can’t take time right now and paint. As a teacher for over 30 years I think I’ve heard every excuse there is: no space to set up, don’t have the materials I want to work with; I don’t […]
Another Potential Journaling Hiccup: The Perfect Time and Place
Blog readers and students often write to me about their hopes and deferred dreams for their journaling and their art life. They live with the hope that if they can “just get through to retirement,” or “Just get through this current crisis [fill in the blank as to what that is]” that the clouds will […]
The Case for Not Finishing a Sketch
I’m the first person to encourage people to finish what they start. In fact I encourage people to push past the point where they think they have finished, because until you “break” a few sketches you don’t really know where that point of finish resides. But I also wanted to put a word in today […]
The Final Lectures Series: Which Question
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Dig Out Some Old Art Supplies
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Enjoy the Little Bits
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Physical Therapy for Your Art Practice
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