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Danny Gregory: I help you make art again

by Danny Gregory

Each Friday, I send advice, ideas, stories and tips to 20K creative people like you. Author of 13 best-selling books on creativity. Founder of Sketchbook Skool w 50k+ students

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Featured Post

🧑🏽‍💻 Four letters I dread

Four letters that send a chill down any writer's spine: TLDR. Too Long. Didn't Read. I recently read an article that suggests writers should write five times more often — but five times less. I'm good with a). Hate b). Sometimes, nay often, I get so exuberant about an idea I go on and on. My wife warms me about it daily. I tell myself that this is just my way — windbaggery, bloviation, mansplaining — and that people who don't like it can lump it. I yam what I yam. Love me or unsubscribe....

1 day ago • 1 min read

Art Supply of the Month: misteaks. Hi Reader: The things I make the most: mistakes. TYpos. Inaccurate lines. Ink splatters. They’re just an inevitable part of my creative process. On my laptop, it’s easy to backspace and delete. But on the pages of my sketchbook, not so much. If I made preparatory pencil sketches, I could erase them. But I work in ink most of the time, so I need strategies and tools to handle my blunders. The easiest thing to do is just scratch out the offending error. I...

5 days ago • 3 min read

When people undergo what, for lack of a less awkward term, I’ll call a “creative reawakening,” they often experience a surge of synchronicity. Serendipity abounds. Opportunities bounce into their laps. Like-minded people just show up. Connections are forged, sparks fly, light blink on. Life gets spicy. Some attribute this to a greater power: “God loves those who create.” Maybe so. I have a more down-to-earth hypothesis. When you allow yourself to be creative, to make things, to smell roses,...

9 days ago • 1 min read

The Golden Journey Hi Reader: Over the past four years, I have become more of a homebody. Some part of my brain just won't come out of lockdown. I’m hoping this domesticity will wane in time, and I will soon take down my suitcase, dust it off, and get on a plane to someplace, anyplace. One of the key reasons I have always loved to travel was the pleasure of keeping a travel journal. The pleasure works in two reciprocal ways: A) Everything is so interesting to draw when you go somewhere new,...

12 days ago • 3 min read

This weekend, my family beat me. Brutally. We were playing cards, and I lost by 85 points. Crushing loss. But I didn’t care. My wife often marvels at (i.e., complains) that I have zero interest in being competitive when we play. Sometimes, I lose, and sometimes, I win. I always shrug. Now, as a New Yorker with a long business career, I understand competition. I am capable of being ambitious, but I don't particularly enjoy it. It can be absurd. And counter-productive. I started practicing yoga...

16 days ago • 2 min read

“Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.” — Robert Henri I have always been a fan of Walt Disney. Not just of his animated films but of a certain image I have of the man himself. It’s not the dictatorial egomaniac that some biographers have depicted but the gentle, welcoming character who appeared at the beginning of each episode of The Wonderful World...

23 days ago • 3 min read

Procrastinate like a pro. Hi Reader: I create things all the time. Usually, something small like a page in my sketchbook, a lesson for a class I’m teaching, a video for my YouTube channel or one of the essays I write twice a week. But every year or so, I work on a big project. Previous projects include books, courses, video series, and learning new skills in depth. Last year’s big project was publishing a book of essays, You Do You. My current project is an online course called Your...

26 days ago • 6 min read

What I've learned from all this. Hi Reader: Every essay I send you is a lesson for me. Here's what I've learned so far. Starting in 2003, I began publishing posts on dannygregorysblog.com. It was an uneven affair — there were stretches in which I’d write every day, but at other times, I’d leave it fallow for months and then resurface with a long apologetic post. Some of the essays were pretty good, others were careless, self-promoting, or glib. Finally, after almost two decades, I abandoned...

26 days ago • 3 min read

When I was thirteen, they showed a movie in Morning Assembly that screwed me up royally. We had moved to America less than a year before, and I was clueless about virtually everything that wasn't to be found on the shelves of my grandfather's library in Lahore. I knew about hunting ocelots, excising neck tumors, and the pretenders to the Romanian throne, but nothing about rock 'n' roll, heroin, or afro picks. This movie taught me about all three. It was a black and white 16 mm, faux...

30 days ago • 3 min read

💖 April Stuff I like and think you might too: Hi Reader: 📕 Did you ever wonder…. How should you look at art? Why do people spend millions on art? What do artists do all day? Do galleries make money? Why is the art world elitist? What are gallery walls white? How do artists become hot? Why does Art matter? What is a butt influencer? Then you must read Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See by Bianca Bosker. I...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read
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