The wrong wish

Wishing

I wish I could draw.

I've had this wish for a long time.

I've taken classes, watched videos, and read books on drawing.

While I've worked through this material I've learned quite a bit.

I've learned that often the issue is that I'm not drawing what I'm seeing because I'm not seeing what I'm seeing.

You know what I mean.

Another issue is that my hand isn't doing what my mind thinks its telling it.

I wish I was better at it.

Doing

And yet I don't draw every day.

Instead of wishing I were better, what if I practiced and did the things required to get better.

Though you might not be able to tell from these newsletters, I write every day.

I write a lot every day.

I've gotten to the point where I can mostly see what it is I want to say.

I've gotten to the point where my words can mostly capture what my mind is seeing.

I wish I could draw like that.

And so I'm going to spend the next four weeks drawing something every day.

I learned this from Jaimee. Set yourself a tiny challenge and then do a little to meet it each day.

Why Now

I've meant to draw sketches for my books and classes for years and I never have. In the past few books I've been using some Comic drawing software and assembling shapes into comics that explain some of the difficult concepts.

They look good enough but not great.

Recently one of my tech reviewers pushed back wanting to know why I used shadows here and why I had some inconsistencies there. Their comments were perfect. I've made adjustments based on other reviewer feedback of the drawings.

But this reviewer went further. He suggested I hire a professional artist.

This isn't the first time it has been suggested - and I've considered it. My books are mainly a labor of love. I look for a topic I want to dig in to and spend months writing and editing it. I publish through my own imprint and never sell a lot of copies. But I always learn a lot and never come out wise enough not to start writing the next book.

All that is to say, there's not enough money to pay an artist what they should earn and I'm not going to ask an artist to take less than they should.

And then the reviewer said that they would pay for it.

This was an amazing and kind offer and I can't accept it.

But my commitment to the reviewer was that I would spend the month of February working on drawing to see if I can get better.

What's Better

What does better look like?

Many people write or teach better than I. But I write and teach in a way that is authentically mine.

It took years of teaching before I found myself and what works for me. The same is true of writing.

Years ago I quit a job editing books because I'd lost my own voice. I was able to write in the voices of each of my authors but had lost the ability to sound like me.

So I don't need to be an amazing artist. I just need to draw enough to figure out what my drawings look like.

Like everyone, I'm sure I will do a lot of derivative and awful work in the next month.

For years I've had the wrong wish.

Instead of wishing I could draw, I should have wished I would draw.

That's an easy wish to fulfill.

Draw.

And by doing so you fulfill the first wish.

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Link to the Podcast episode from March 1, 2024.

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A year ago I was in Paris and went to the Six Nations Rugby game of England vs France. I can't imagine how much the world has changed since I took this picture from my seat. I took a packed train to the stadium where we stood jammed in next to loud strangers from the opposing sides. Tens of thousands of fans having a great time and then packing back into trains to take them back. And I had a ball.

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Vincent

One of the things I miss this year is not traveling to museums to see some of my favorite works of art. Sometimes I go because it's a museum or a work that Kim loved. One of our favorites was the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Now you can see many of his works from home.

The Combine book

The book is mostly done - I had a great time writing the last couple of chapters and think that the examples worked nicely. Pick up your copy now with the full version available to you later this week (and updates coming after we see what's released at WWDC).

Walking animal polygons

I love this Desmos post with images of animated polygons.

Amazing painting technique

I couldn't look away from this demonstration of single stroke painting. Just incredible.

Side Effects

I love this animated short. I thought we were headed somewhere else. It's more of the Giving Tree with a happy ending.

Maggie's link

When Maggie sent me this week's link to Singing 16 Levels of ”Circles” by Post Malone (Noob to Elite) I didn't expect it to move as quickly as it did. I thought I was in for a long video that wasn't engaging.

I should have known better. This moves pretty quickly and is fun. I'm resisting clicking on more like it.

Other people's stuff

The Xcode beta dropped yesterday on the Apple developer site (If you don't understand what that means - move on)

There are a lot of welcome improvements to the tools, the docs, and also Swift 5.4 is included. This means Result Builders even though they aren't mentioned in the release notes.

Donny Wals reminds you, though, that this is the release that requires you be on the current OS. It happens every year at roughly this time.