The Path of Drawing: Lessons for Everyday Creativity and Mindfulness

by Patricia Watwood

Overview

Nurture creativity and mindfulness with step-by-step drawing lessons, relaxing exercises, and instructive practices

Today, many people look to cultivating creativity as a means to improve one’s quality of life, to unplug, to alleviate negative conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression, and to build resilience and enjoy the present moment. Adjacent to such practices as meditation and journaling, drawing is an accessible and personal medium that can facilitate both creativity and mental and spiritual health.

The sample projects in this book are designed to be approachable and manageable in a short period of time. They are not intended to be a rigorous course of study toward mastering complex skills, but, rather, are designed to offer the reader exercises that will help them enjoy time spent working creatively, and develop some technical skills and master simple concepts along the way. Readers should find that daily creative practice and being more open to observing the joys of the world around them can help build qualities of patience, confidence, calm, connectedness, and bravery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580935661
Publisher:	The Monacelli Press
Publication date:	12/14/2022
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	828,184
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Patricia Watwood is a visual artist known for her realist drawings, oil paintings, and portraits. She has exhibited at the Beijing World Art Museum, the European Museum of Modern Art, The Butler Institute of American Art, and her work is held in public and private collections around the world. Her commissioned portraits hang in institutions such as St. Louis City Hall, Washington University, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Art Museums. Watwood earned her MFA with honors from the New York Academy of Art, and was a founding member of the Water Street Atelier. She has been a professor of drawing at New York Academy of Art and has written for and been featured in American Artist and Fine Art Connoisseur, amongst other publications.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 8

Foreword Juliette Aristides 9

Preface 11

Introduction 15

Materials List 20

Chapter 1 Inviting Creativity In 22

Welcoming a new practice

Building a Creative Habit 23

Set an Intention 27

Tips for Successful Starts 27

Gathering Inspiration 30

Visualizing Your Future Sketchbook 31

Chapter 2 Spiral Your Way In 34

Simple rituals and projects for your practice

Simple Skill-Building Exercises 37

Project: Hit the Dot 38

Project: Hatching Quilt 39

Magic Geometries 40

Project: Geometric Design Drawing 44

Chapter 3 Opening Up to the Visual World 48

The receptive and nonjudgmental mind

Walking and Observing 49

Nature, the Great Teacher 50

Project: Gathering from Nature 53

The Open Creative Mind 55

Chapter 4 Creative Compost 60

Idea gathering and making inspiration a practice

Cultivating Inspiration 61

Creative Visualization 65

Project: Vision Board 66

Mood Boards for Creative Development 68

Collage in Art and Sketchbooks 69

Tips on Drawing from Reference Material 69

Project: Collage Creative Compost Drawing 72

Feeding Your Spirit 74

Chapter 5 Orientation Lines 78

Measurement, shapes, and angles

Tools for Finding Your Way 79

How to Make Observational Measurements 81

Start Where You Are 82

Project: Cold Coffee 86

Sketching 88

Planning Placement 90

Triangulation 92

Finding Geometric Shapes 92

Block-In Lines 93

Project: Draw an Oak Leaf 96

The Envelope 99

Chapter 6 Strong Graphic Lines 102

Types of lines in drawing

Contour Lines 103

Graphic Play 104

Blind Contour Drawing 106

Finding Joy in Unexpected Places 108

Project: What's in Your Junk Drawer? 109

Positive and Negative Space 111

Line Weight 111

Tangent and Overlapping Lines 114

Project: Drawing Bottles 117

Chapter 7 The Shadow's Edge 120

The language of light and form

Value 121

Project: Value Step Scale 123

Organizing Values to Create Form 124

Basic Vocabulary of Form 126

Key Principles of Light 128

The Technology of a Single Light Source 131

Project: Draw a Pear with Light and Shadow 133

Keep Lights and Darks Unified 135

Optical Illusions and Contrast 135

Project: Shell Drawing on Toned Paper 137

Chapter 8 New Paths in Color 140

Exploring with watercolor and mixed media

Simple Ways to Begin with Watercolor 141

Project: Watercolor Circle Washes 142

Learning about Color with a Limited Palette 145

Project: Intuitive Explorations in Color 148

Ideas for Mixed Media 150

How to Build a Travel Sketchbook Kit 155

Project: Leaf Drawing with Watercolor 156

Chapter 9 Monsters and Mandalas 160

Taming the monsters that get in our way

Meet the Monsters 162

Befriending Your Monster 165

A Private Bubble 166

Everyday Discouragement 167

Project: Draw Your Monster 170

Working from Imagination 172

Inventing Chimeras 173

Mandalas 175

Project: Imagination Mandalas 176

Chapter 10 Developing Creative Ideas 178

From the loosest of doodles to a completed work

What It Takes to Make a Masterpiece 180

Worldbuilding 183

Strategies for Developing Work 186

Dioramas and Models 188

Project: Make a Paper Playground 190

Small Bets 193

Notan 197

Project: Notan Thumbnails 200

Chapter 11 Lightworkers 204

Intentional practices for continued creativity

The Tools of the Lightworker 205

Project: Draw Your Eye 209

Practicing Self-Love 210

Hands of Gratitude 212

Project: Draw Your Hand 216

The Path Onward 218

Glossary 220

Selected Bibliography 222

Notes 223

Thumbnail Index of Artist Illustrations 224

About the Author 228

Index 229

Editorial Reviews

'An art instructional book on cultivating creativity and drawing as a practice of mindfulness.' - Realism Today

From the Publisher