My Drawing Journey
Hey there,
I’m Felix and love drawing. Glad to have you on the site!
On this page I share my drawing journey with you: How I got into drawing, the years of stagnation, how things finally “clicked” and I learned how to get better, and of course how this blog came to be.
My hope is you’ll learn a critical lesson from my story, that can help you get better at drawing faster than you thought possible, within just a few months.
You’ll also see a bunch of drawings of mine from 2016 till today!
Early Childhood & The Big Plateau
I’ve been drawing on and off throughout my childhood, taking some drawing classes here and there, reading a few books, and trying to draw better from observation.
My goal at the time was to draw realistic portraits and figures. I’m not quite sure why that excited me, but it seemed like a difficult and worthy goal to attain.
A big breakthrough at the time happened when I read Betty Edward’s book “Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain”.
The book taught me how to draw from observation and after hours of labor create a realistic drawing by measuring lines and matching values.
I was excited at first, as the book somehow opened my mind up to the “visual world” out there, and to observe what I’m drawing. To this day I think it’s an excellent book for beginners.
That being said, after the first excitement (“I can finally draw a realistic portrait, yay!”), it also resulted in the most persistent plateau after that.
I experienced the following frustrations:
I thought I wanted to draw realistically, but copying lines and values for long hours felt mind-numbing.
I felt unskilled, as there wasn’t more to my drawings than “measure & match”.
The joy, inspiration and excitement I felt about getting great at drawing disappeared.
All in all, the thoughts in my mind at the time could be summarized like that:
“If Drawing is that simple and boring, and I just measure and match lines and values, then maybe drawing isn’t for me after all… The final drawing doesn’t seem worth the effort, and the process isn’t as fun as I anticipated.”
Stagnation & Re-ignition Through Life Drawing
The plateau persisted for a few years. I still drew here and there, but not with a lot of focus.
When I started studying for my Bachelor's degree (Philosophy and Economics), the university offered life drawing classes.
I had never been to a life drawing class up to that point and thought “Hey this sounds fun, let’s try it out”.
As it turned out, drawing the figure in a life drawing context re-ignited my passion for drawing.
The atmosphere was relaxing and meditative, and the time limit imposed by having a model pose made the drawing process much faster and more exciting. Being forced to sketch quickly I learned how to:
Observe & make decisions quickly instead of laboriously copying.
Simplify shadow shapes instead of matching each value “pixel” individually.
Use long gestural lines and shapes instead of slowly hatching marks.
Draw from anatomical knowledge to create a stronger sense of realism.
These epiphanies were still in their infancy at the time, and I didn’t realize that I would build on these lessons much more in later years.
All in all it was a great time, as life drawing through it’s magical atmosphere re-ignited my passion for drawing.
I still wouldn’t get fully into drawing until years after that, but I still kept it up here and there, tinkering with it when I felt like it. Here are some drawings and studies from around the life drawing phase.
Corona, A Decision & Faster Progress
During Corona, working long hours at the computer, I craved picking up a non-digital hobby.
Something using my hands, with physical materials, that did not involve a bright screen glaring into my eyes.
And that’s how drawing came back into my life, as it gave me the balance I needed.
It took up more and more space in my mind, I got hooked again, and decided to make a proper effort to get good at it.
This time though I was older and had experience getting good at other things. I’d been doing strength training for many years at that point with some success, and worked in various startups, all experiences which taught me how to get good at something, with a goal-oriented, “think outside the box and get it done” mindset.
So I made the following decision:
I would try and get good at drawing as if it was a project that had to be delivered at work. I’d try and think about it from every angle, seek out any teachers or resources necessary, and try any exercises that seemed valuable to get great.
Below are some sketches from that time. As you can see I started to experiment with a range of materials like ballpoint pen, white chalk and toned paper. I also got exposed to techniques like hatching, read about perspective, and overall expanded my knowledge and skill set.
Educating Myself
What followed was an intense period of study, where I got any book or course I could get my hands on that I thought would improve my drawing skills.
As mentioned, I didn’t go to art school and was a business guy, so I figured I needed to invest in my drawing education.
Here are some pics from my drawing seminar with Chris Legaspi, an amazing teacher who I learned and continue to learn a ton from, as well as from painting seminars in Florence:
There are many other seminars I went to, e.g. a week long drawing course at the Watts’s Atelier in San Diego, construction drawing & à la prima painting seminars at the Freihand Atlier in Cologne, and more.
All the reading, learning, analyzing, note taking and practicing resulted in a phase where every drawing I did felt like a step up from the previous drawing.
With each drawing I learned several lessons and was able to integrate those lessons into my next drawings. I realized:
“I finally understand how to get better at drawing, reliably and consistently!”
Here are some of the drawings that I created during that phase.
The How To Practice Drawing Blog Is Born
As you can see my understanding of materials, technique, anatomy, composition, design, form and other concepts improved a lot during during that time, and I continue to work on my skills to this day, as I’m far from where I want to be.
Looking back, I found it incredible how hard it was to gather all this drawing knowledge, and how many years it took me to understand what drawing is, and how to get better at it.
Out of all the epiphanies, two stuck out most:
I would have saved years of slow progress if I had learned the drawing fundamentals from the very beginning.
I would have learned much faster, had someone taught me how to practice drawing effectively, given the nature of this skill.
And that’s how this blog came to be.
I wrote the two cornerstone articles, Drawing Fundamentals The Definitive Guide & Drawing Practice The Definitive Guide, to help other drawing students avoid the same mistakes.
And over time thousands of visitors started coming to the blog per month.
What This Site Is About
I’m thankful for what I learned from my teachers, and continue to get coached myself, both online and offline.
Yet, I realized there is one BIG upside to being mostly self-taught:
You become a self-reliant learner, that takes responsibility for your own results.
Making that mindset shift is critical to consistently improve your drawing skills.
And that’s what this site is about!
Giving you the tools, strategies and techniques you need to take charge of your drawing progress.
Where To Start
First, I recommend reading the drawing fundamentals and drawing practice guides.
They address the two biggest lessons I wish I applied sooner:
Practicing all drawing fundamentals at least once
Taking a Multi-Sensory Approach to drawing
I continue to publish in-depth guides on the blog, but to get more nuanced lessons not covered on the blog join my email newsletter.
I review my own drawings and skillset there, show you how I practice and improve, and you’re also the first to hear about new articles, developments on the site and course releases.
Lastly, I recently launched a video course called Drawing Fundamentals In 7 Days, with over 10+ hours of content.
If you are serious about learning the drawing fundamentals to get better faster, I highly recommend you check out the course page. It contains my very best lessons, live drawing demonstrations, a ton of exercises and much more.