My vote
As important as art and drawing are to me, I have also always been deeply interested and involved with the politics of this country, ever since I was at Princeton, majoring in political science, working for my congressman, and...
Blue Skies
From a comment submitted re. my last post. What is creativity? Creativity is the ability to come up with productive, enterprising ideas and work that, at the very least, should have aesthetic, if not monetary value. It's all very...
Meeting Art
I have just arrived at the last page of my office sketchbook, the one I carry to meetings and use to write down my 'ideas'. Flipping through this most recent volume, I came across lots of little drawings. They...
Paint it blue
A recent email: Hi Danny, Do you think being creative and artistic makes a person more depressed or prone to depression? I read a book about this a long time ago. They actually used Jonathan Winters as an example...
Geotagging
Flickr is an incredible thing and I love to wander through the EDM Flickrgroup and look at all the work members have posted (almost 13,000 different drawings and paintings!!). I just discovered a cool feature called 'geotagging'...
Making Today Matter
I drew this comic and then, without thinking, filled in the ballons. Some how it seems right to me but it may just be crap. Whatever. I am far away from home and have been for ten days. I...
Gosh darned
In this country, and many others, it is very unpopular to not believe in god. Some people are coming out and discussing this but it is the taboo topic of our time. Even here in the Gemorrah called New...
Welcome EDM Member #2000!
Carrie Nixon is our 2000th member, followed quickly by #2001. Why not be #2002? Join today and start drawing with us? Your pal, Danny...
Notes to Myself
I've used every sort of journal-book over the past decade, but the one I've returned to the most was the pocket-sized, drawing Moleskine. The paper is a little odd; it has a water resistant treatment designed, I guess, to...
What if:
Some dreams and plans for the perfect online creative community
Through a Glass Brightly
On getting reading glasses at 45
Too hot not to cool down
Life without drawing is bad. And drawing without life is bad too.
You suck. But enough about you.
Should you care about others' opinions? How much? A lengthy and popular discussion ensues.
I do it 'cause it's trendy.
Why is journaling so popular these days? I take on the topic.
Creeping down the Promenade
The effect of globalization on the landscape and how we draw it.
Gran
My grandfather had a small stroke last week and now one of his ankles is paralyzed. After a depressing day or two, he got a splint and is, by all accounts, quite happily mobile again. Gran was a doctor...
On drawing from photos
An exploration of the effect photographs have on my brain and eyeballs.
My Conversion
Dear W_____: First of all, thanks for your note and, secondly sorry, for the delay in my response. Your words were quite important and I wanted to give them some time to think of proper response. I have looked...
My recent post to the EDM group
Art making is not a competitive sport. Being intimidated by what others do, by the clarity of their vision, the steadiness of their line, means thwarting the very thing that will get you to where you want to be. If...
Childish things
Thoughts on why we lose our childhood creative impulses and love of making art.
Perfect storm
So far this millennium has been a strained and sweaty passage. As the moorings are loosened, it seems that any and everything could unravel. A terrorist attack a half a mile and four years away, still feels like it...
Releaf
On Sunday, I took the first drawing class I've had since I was eleven. It was at the Open Center, a sort of granola-y place in Soho which offers many new Age classes on creativity, meditation, and other sorts...
Drawing fire
I wrote about Steve Mumford last year when his work was only available on Artnet. Now he has published a sumptuous book collecting all of the watercolors and observations he made during his visits to war-torn Iraq. He told...
My perspective on perspective
School's back on and NYU students wander through my neighborhood, clutching new books and pencils. Quite often, I see some of them set up in the park, preparing to draw Washington Square arch. It's a beautiful landmark, and I've...
On Cross Hatching
As you spend more and more time drawing, there usually comes a point when contour drawing isn't enough. You can set down lines that perfectly describe the shapes in front of you but you become interested in giving your...
Clarification
I've been following a discussion on the Everyday Matters group and it has gotten my wheels turning. The talk has been about the utility of specific drawing assignments suggested by others, whether there's really utility or purpose to everyone...
Avuncular advice
hey danny just a (not so quick) question for ya we're in the middle of this whole looking for colleges and setting up visits thing and it is absolutely overwhelming. i was told by an admissions dean to find...
Collaboration isn't just for the French
I am writing this on a flight to Los Angeles where we are going to shoot the first five commercials for the campaign I began last summer. It was July 27th when I stood at a urinal on 22nd...
A good thing
From my visit to Martha's trial last year. The Morning News editors were advised by their lawyers not to run it in my story. I'm sort of glad as it's a fairly shitty drawing done in the height of...
Aliens
Last night we went to a preview for James Cameron's new movie, Aliens of the Deep. It was pretty spectacular in 3-D Imax, all shot on the bottom of the ocean with extraordinary critters and lunar landscapes. Cameron chatted...
Early morning habits
Too long ago, I went to the gym every day. At seven a.m., the doors opened and a small group of us would shamble in and begin lifting weights. I had a little notebook in which I charted my...
Sour grapes and bleeding hearts
At various points in my life, I have not gone with my gut. I have relied on my head exclusively. I am a good talker and so am able to construct rationales for most things and then press them...
To tell the truth
Dear Colleen: Thanks for the thanks. I wanted to respond publicly to your comment that: One of the main reasons I do not have a blog of my own is that I secretly wonder if I would censor myself...
Wolf II
I rant and then I recant. It's certainly nice to just say, "Well, the info they based the alert upon is obsolete and we're safe," but I still have a nagging feeling. I don't think I'd feel better if there...
Wolf!!!
Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand
London calling, now don't look at us, All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust. London calling, see we ain't got no swing, 'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing... This will be an admittedly biased and flawed...
I am
I live on the earth. I am an earthling. I eat meat and vegetables. I am an omnivore. I have a wife. I am a husband. I have a son. I am a dad. I scratch my ass. I'm...
I contain multitudes
What is identity? How does art define and shatter it? An essay that's a little philosphical, a little funny, and plenty weird.
The Art of War
Where's Johnny Got his Gun? Where's All Quiet on the Western Front? Where's Catch 22? A Farewell to Arms and For whom the Bell Tolls? From Here to Eternity? The Naked and the Dead? Where's Guernica? Where's Alice's Restaurant? Where's...
Serendipidity do dah
When folks undergo what, for lack of a less gooey term, I'll call a creative reawakening, they often experience a surge of synchronicity. Opportunities bounce into their laps. Like minded people just show up. Connections are made, sparks fly,...
MemoryLane.com
This morning someone interviewed me and asked me how long I've been on the Internet. I wasn't sure. My first online experience was in 1983 or so with a thing called The Source, a sort of online community not...
Living well through bad drawings
When some people see an illustrated journal, they say, "Wow, that's great. I could never do that." With some coaxing, they may be persuaded nonetheless to give it a try. Others say, "Wow, I'm going to do that." And...
The Art of the Cinema
In the movies, artists are generally bastards, nuts or addicts. Here are some of my favorites. Biopics The Agony & the Ecstacy: Irving Stone boils down the Sistine Chapel with a liberal amount of artistic license. Good painting scenes....
Re-learning to draw
My boy, Jack, 9, has always loved to draw. He draws in the symbolic away kids do, inventing characters in his mind, drawings scenes and battles and maps and worlds. Recently though we have been talking about drawing realistically...
Why do I do it?
The story of how and why I started drawing again and starting this blog and writing books and all that stuff.
Happy little trees
There is something mesmerizing and horrifying about watching the art porn of Bob Ross and his mentor, William Alexander (master of "magic white") as they did wet-on-wet paintings of landscapes while standing in a blank TV studio. I guess...
Pigging-out on pigment
One key thing I’ve learned over the past couple of months is that, when it comes to paint, a rose madder isn’t a rose madder isn’t a rose madder. Paints are very variable and there’s a lot of science...
Notes on notes
Doing my homework for color theory class this week, I discovered I had made the sort of thing I had always admired. It's a great feeling , to look at your own work, and say, "Hey, that's how you...
Cataloging Colors
What does it take to name a color? Manufacturers do it every day for their own convenience. It helps them keep track of what they're making and how it's selling and distinguishes one season from another. Apparently, it also makes...
My theory. Theory #1, that is mine.
When I was about nine, I developed a theory. What if everybody actually sees very different colors but calls them by the same names. Like, I look at a tree and see its leaves as a color I call...
Just add water
I'm no Archimedes, but I’ve had a disproportionate number of good ideas in the five minutes or so of my day I spend in the shower. I’ve explored a number of possible explanations. My shower pressure is fairly powerful for...
The rhythm is gonna get you
I’ve always enjoyed drawing series of things. It’s so interesting to see variations on a theme, to explore connections between things, and to expand specifics into generalities and vice versa. I learn a lot by doing drawings of similar things,...
Anatomy of anatomy
The profound pleasures of drawing nekkid people.
Pigeonholes
Man, the name-giving animal, is in rare form these days. We're just stalking the planet, hell-bent on slapping labels on others, stuffing them into compartments, and spewing vast generalities about things we don't understand well enough. Religion is dividing the...
Imaginary friends
Toppling giants
As I had hoped, my entry "Unplugged" has sparked a brisk debate on the aesthetics of digital drawing. Having taken on computers and drums, I shall next turn my attention to, in turn, pastel drawings, cilantro, and the films of...
Unplugged
I got my first mouse in 1983. It was attached to an Apple IIC, the grooviest PC to come along, a 9" monitor, a carrying handle, white like the current Apple design standard. There was a program called Macpaint...
My Name is Mud
Alfred Hitchcock meticulously planned out every shot in his films long before he set foot on the set. Then he waddled on with precise storyboards, his angles, lenses, lighting directions all completely worked out. Most artists aren’t so controlled....
If you're so great, why aren't you rich?
(Drawings done while watching a little over an hour of network TV)These are dark times for the nexus of art and commerce. Every industry that tries to make a buck from others’ creativity is moribund or in flames. The music...
Ideas and the end of the world
In nature, we organisms have a tendency to seek balance. We want to adapt to our environment and develop the most efficient life style based on the resources around us. You and your descendants will change in order to...
It's not easy being chartreuse
I start most days by choosing a palette. It's often a fairly subconscious process as I flip through my pants, shirts, sweaters, etc in the semi-darkness of my closet. I have a lot of drab, typically male colors: khaki,...
Ars longa, vita brevis
Every biographical movie about an artist depicts its subject as some sort of dysfunctional weirdo. Picasso - a woman hater. Van Gogh - a psychotic suicidal. Basquiat - a drug addicted suicide. Pollock - a drunken suicidal. Warhol -...
Belongings.
Maybe it was going to the James Rosenquist retrospective at the Guggenheim but I've been feeling sort of sick of materialism. Everything we encounter, it seems, is in some insidious way aimed at making us burn to buy something,...
Trust or bust.
In 1975, Keith Jarrett recorded the best selling solo piano album ever, The Koln Concerts. What’s even more extraordinary is that the music is purely improvised. Jarrett had spent the day feeling jet lagged and under the weather, he...
Seeing bread
Drawing is seeing. If you can see, you can draw. But can you see? Let's see. Looking is a language. Look: a dog, a tree, a car, a man. We apply labels...
Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Fabrication
Don't get me wrong — I’m not a huge motorcycle enthusiast. The Hells’ Angels HQ is several blocks due east of us and I usually cross to other side if I have to walk by. Dentists and attorneys in...
To Jacqui
Illustration by my favorite artist, Jack Tea GregoryIt is hard to be perfectly imperfect. I am having a helluva time struggling with it today. I want to be approximate, patient, comfortably flawed, and yet I am afraid that I...
The Good Book
So what is this journal business all about? Is it narcissism, a vainglorious attempt to turn one's life into some sort of keepsake for posterity? Or is it about commiseration, "Dear Diary: today sucked..."?, a wallowing that lets you turn...
Something I found troubling
Larger version...
Last Year
I was feeling very bitter and mad last March when I made this. It feels a long time ago and yet not....
Never be bored.
My grandmother used to say, "Only stupid people get bored." In our family, this threat was the ultimate insult. Still, we all end up in situations that are tedious - but your journal can be your salvation. Instead of drinking too much bad coffee, reading a crummy novel or watching sports highlights on Headline News, look around for the particular in the generic environment of a typical airport. It can turn a dull business trip into an adventure.
Dealing with turds
Advice on how to contend with the 'worst 'of your creations.
A record of my exploration into all aspects of drawing, illustrated journaling, creativity, and the inspiring aspects of art. By the author of "Everyday Matters," "The Creative License", and "An Illustrated Life" and other books.