‘(…) there are no mistakes. Just interesting creative experiments.’ — Beth Kempton
It’s been some weeks since I started Art School: a 9-week evening course for beginners in drawing and painting at Browne School of Art in Auckland, New Zealand.
“You’re an architect! Why are you doing this course?”
These foundational courses are a fantastic way to socialise with people with similar interests in a relaxed manner and I’ve been wanting to do such a course for a long time, still, I felt like I had to explain myself: I am an architect and I sketch daily - true. But I wanted to learn the fundamentals of drawing and painting from a professional artist - not to learn how to draw, but to (re)learn how to see.
Plus, even when following any artistic practice, I find it essential to approach creativity and life with a beginner’s mindset. Julia Cameron explains it fantastically:
The beginner’s humility and openness lead to exploration. Exploration leads to accomplishment.
These are some tips and exercises I regularly practice to keep myself in a beginner’s mindset. Try them out! They might open new ways for you also:
Make marks. Writers write morning pages to warm up their hand to start their practice; musicians practice different scales or do breathing exercises before starting their routines; athletes warm up their muscles before going up in intensity. When drawing, try starting any day or practice with just making marks, with experimenting with the line:
Re-learn the fundamentals by changing and experimenting with different media. Even if you are an expert and you have achieved mastery in your practice, try switching to different media from time to time. David Hockney knows better than anyone: when the iPad allowed digital drawing to become more accessible to every artist, even though he already had an established career in making pictures, he embraced this new media as a beginner and produce some incredible drawings that later on became the ground for a new stage in his career. I would never get tired of recommending his wonderful book ‘Spring Cannot Be Cancelled’. He also dared to paint with photos:
Try different creative endeavours outside of your regular practice. It puts you in a beginner’s mindset and forces you to learn from other processes. Christoph Niemann (one of the best visual artists out there) learning piano is a fantastic example of this. I have recommended his book Pianoforte many times. This is an example of how starting from scratch another creative or artistic practice can inspire your own regular one, keeping you fresh and ready with ideas.
“You’re having fun, eh?” — the teacher asked me in a factual manner on several occasions. I was, indeed, and that is the best way for me to learn or to do any creative task: play!
What’s more, playing and keeping a beginner’s mindset opens us up to possibilities. While writing about this topic, I came across this quote, which I think is such a fantastic way to conclude the post:
“This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. (…) In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” — Shunryū Suzuki
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Happy sketching!
Ana
Thanks so much for reading!
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All images and text © Ana Vila
💛 Bonus for Paid Subscribers: These are some of the drawings and exercises I did during the first weeks in Art School and what I learned from them:
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