What on Earth am I doing?

An attempt to explain myself.

A few days ago, someone wrote in to our website to ask what it is I actually teach.

She wanted to know what the style is called because she has taken a lot of art lessons and they all apparently have labels that describe what it is, what school of art they belong to, I guess.

I swallowed hard.

Someone was finally calling my bluff.

They were onto the fact that I’m not a real artist, let alone a real art teacher.

I wrote the following to explain my way out of this corner. I hope I don’t sound too defensive.

Dear R_:

I don’t think of what I do as a way of drawing but as a way of living.

I use drawing to gain a greater appreciation of my life, to look at things around me longer and harder than I normally would, and to help me to be more present and appreciative of what my life contains.

I try to slow myself down when I draw and connect to my feelings about the moment.

I’ve been doing this for three decades now, so I like to reshuffle the deck periodically, to make sure I’m not getting jaded by developing a style and approach that somehow automates and dulls the experience.

To that end, I study other artists, and they influence me for a while until that influence just becomes part of me.

I change up my materials to reawaken my awareness to a new sense of unfamiliarity and discomfort, which helps me keep the experience fresh.

Generally, I just pick stuff up as I go along and consider the whole thing an adventure.

And it’s an adventure that I want to encourage other people to go on too, either with me or on their own. It’s done so much for me that I can’t help being a missionary for drawing, but I don’t have a real answer as to how you personally should do it best or what your art should look like.

I don’t intend to teach anyone a specific style of art making, but rather to encourage them, through exposure to lots of different artists and ideas and materials, to come up with an approach that engages and suits them.

So, in short, my particular type of drawing is Danny Drawing, but my goal is to help you develop R__ Drawing, whatever that means to you.

If you insist on calling it something, how about “illustrated journaling”? That’s usually been my default when pressed, because I like diaries, and illustrated books, and maps, and diagrams, and stuff that feels like a record of the journey we’re on.

If you have a better answer, I’d love to hear it.

Your pal,

Danny

P.S. If you’d like to experience what I teach, join us for my Day in Paris workshop this weekend. But hurry — you only have a few more hours to sign up.