Art Lesson # 27: Draw Your Garden

Plant it! Grow it! Draw it!

As I was drawing the illustrations for today’s newsletter, I filmed myself so I could turn these little pictures of herbs into an art demo. Drawing these reminded me that when I first decided I wanted to learn how to draw, at about the age of thirty, the thing I very specifically wanted to learn how to do was this. Just draw little pictures of what was growing in my garden. That didn’t sound very complicated, but I couldn’t figure out how to get started. That’s what art classes are for!

So. If you’re just starting out, like I was, maybe this’ll help. And if you’ve been drawing and painting for a while, maybe this will be a reminder that you can do something really simple, from life, right around your house, for just twenty minutes. I guarantee you that if you fill a whole sketchbook with simple little drawings of what’s growing around your house—or what you’re cooking, or any other ordinary daily activity—you will finish that sketchbook and flip through it and be AMAZED at how cool it …