01/04/2016 09:00
Back to Beginning (and Playing!)
Sharpen your pencils and get your watercolor brushes ready—a new semester of Sketchbook Skool is about to begin!
In a few weeks, our klassrooms will be filled with students taking our new kourse, Expressing. (You can read more about it here.) In preparation and anticipation, some of you have been reviewing lessons from the very first SBS course, Beginning, and our summer kourse, Playing.
[fve]https://vimeo.com/98134419[/fve]
As Sketchbook Skool student Judy said on Facebook, “It’s been about 18 months since I took my first nervous but excited steps into SBS. After a year and a half of learning and sharing with my buddies at SBS, I have sketchbooks of my own, filled with my own interpretations of the world around me, my day to day life. I’m completely over the moon with every scribbly one of them!”
“I clearly remember watching in horror as Sketchbook Skool co-founder Danny Gregory instructed, ‘No pencil!’” said Kim. Other students agreed, but found that giving up the pencil was liberating (and led to an addictive pen habit).
[fve]https://vimeo.com/130548605[/fve]
These students’ experiences bring to light another myth that may be blocking your creativity:
Creativity Myth #2: I have to go to art school to make art.
Lots of people believe that in order to be an artist, you have to have gone to a prestigious school for years and years, preferably in Europe, at great expense of time and money. But that’s not true. (That’s why we call this a myth.) Thousands of happy, very artistic Sketchbook Skool students have discovered what Danny wrote in Art Before Breakfast: “Art is made by accountants, farmers, and stay-at-home moms. Art just takes desire and 15 minutes a day. Art is about passion, love, life, humanity–everything that is truly valuable.” And, since our fakulty members teach on location from all over the world, our students do get to study in Europe.
But the students who took these art lessons learned something beyond how to sketch and paint. They discovered how the simple act of drawing made ordinary moments more special. They began to see the rich beauty in the things around them, from people to birds to pieces of toast. Neither moments nor objects were taken for granted; everything became a potential work of art, and the simplicity of the lessons made turning them into art easy.
Looking at the world in this way brings the true value of life’s moments to our attention. “As with so many others,” said J.C., “Sketchbook Skool has changed my life.”
If you want to learn how to live a more creative life, take a look at the Beginning, Playing, and Expressing kourses. And learn to see the world in a whole new way.
