Sketch! The Non-Artist's Guide to Inspiration, Technique, and Drawing Daily Life

I know you think of me as reader. And, of course, I am. 

I've been reading a little less lately. Instead, I've been spending lots of my time...oh my, how hard this is to reveal...how preposterous it sounds...how presumptuous...okay, here goes...instead, I've been spending lots of my time these days...sketching.

I love to draw. I've taken just-for-fun classes at the community college. My friend, her sister, and I took drawing classes one year from a private teacher with a group of elementary students (need I share that all of the elementary students were better...no, MUCH better...than I was?) One summer, my friend and I decided to meet together a few times a month and draw. I've kept a writing/drawing notebook since my twenties.

In January I received Sketch!: The Non-Artist's Guide to Inspiration, Technique, and Drawing Daily Life from the publisher.

And I started drawing.

Drawing.

A little every day. 

 

In my notebooks. 

During long meetings.

In the library.

 Sometimes adding a little color.

Sketch is the perfect book for the non-artist who loves to draw. We non-artists who love to draw need a lot of inspiration to get us over the hurdle of daring to draw. Sketch offers bucket loads of inspiration. We non-artists who love to draw need technique; we were never brave enough to take drawing classes at school. Sketch offers bucket loads of technique. Mostly, though, we non-artists who love to draw need to draw our daily lives. Sketch offers bucket loads of daily life drawings.

Reading Sketch! led me to seek out other good books about drawing: Drawing With Children...Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner...Cartooning for Kids...Mark Kistler's You Can Draw in 30 Days...Illustration School: Let's Draw Happy People...and even Danny Gregory's new Art Before Breakfast and Natalie Goldberg's Living Color.

And isn't that what good books do? Send you out into the world, in search of other good books?

I'd tell you more, but I really want to get back to my drawings. If you know of other helpful books for us non-artists, please let me know.

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. Click here to join the Salon.

The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news and recap the past week.

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that we found in our mailboxes last week.  It is now being hosted here.

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews in which you can share the books you've acquired.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from! I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme Book Journey loves to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme.