Sketching Oliver

Peter Rukavina

On Dan Misener’s Work in Progress podcast last week there was a reference to Sketchbook Skool.

Intrigued, I looked it up, and, somewhat against type, plonked down $29 for the How to Draw Without Talent course.

I’m halfway through the course now, and the drawing below is the first one I’ve produced that comes anywhere near looking like its subject. This is all rather remarkable to me, as I truly have considered myself to have no talent for drawing, especially with a third dimension.

The course—a series of very short videos punctuated by exercises—seems almost laughably primitive on first blush. But it gets to the heart of the matter rather ingeniously: to draw something you have to see it.

Which is to say that I need to turn off the “oh, that’s Oliver” part of my brain and turn on the “that line finishes just over top of that circle” part.

It turns out that drawing things that look like the things you’re drawing has an awful lot to do simply with getting angles and proportions right. And it turns out that’s a learnable skill.

I had no idea.

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About This Blog

Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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