Dear reader,
This month’s Insider Hangout was a special one - instead of being limited to only paid subscribers of this publication, it was open to all readers! In today’s post, some scenes from the hangout, and sneaky art in the mail to readers around the world.
The SneakyArt Post is a publication of secretly drawn art of the world. Every week, I share the latest pages from my sketchbooks and the best ideas from my journey as an artist and writer.
If you like having this in your inbox, help me find more readers!
Minimalism makes people very curious, and the most common questions I get from readers and fans are about my drawing process. How do I simplify? When should I edit? What should I filter? Where should I begin?
I started live drawing on Zoom in part to answer these questions. And since the first session, draw-alongs have become an integral part of the monthly hangouts with SneakyArt Insiders (the paid subscribers of this publication).
I think watching people draw can be very useful. It is how I learned to draw too - spending time at urban-sketch meetups around accomplished sketchers and artists, peering over their shoulders as they worked, and asking questions. So, demonstrating my art is also a way to pay it forward.
Watch the demos from the last session in the video attached with this post!
Drawing for others is good for me too. Speaking about process - drawing aloud, you could say - lets me think consciously about ideas and thoughts that are otherwise subconscious. Putting words to things has a way of defining them.
Insider Hangouts are usually quite cosy, just a few of us regulars who have gotten to know one another in these monthly appointments. But this summer, I am throwing open the doors to all readers!
If you want to learn to draw, ask me questions about art supplies and sketchbooks, or just want to hang out and watch me work, come on in. The next Hangout is on Saturday, July 13.
🖼️ SneakyArt Around the World
This month, a print order went to a reader’s home in New Jersey, another went up in my studio, and a tiny drawing made its way to a reader in Nova Scotia!
Use code SNEAKYREADER to get 10% off.
So when I looked at my stack of lovely letters and saw a very small package on the top from Nishant Jain I very literally squealed. I surprised my dog. I ran and got my scissors but did not run with them, do not worry. [Keep reading]
📖 A Few Good Links
🥾 Rusty Foster (Today in Tabs) is doing the Appalachian Trail next month.
If we couldn’t forget the experience of suffering, I don’t think anyone would climb a mountain more than once. Every time I climb a mountain there comes at least one moment where I wish I were doing literally anything else. [Keep reading]
🤳🏼
is resisting the algorithm as best as she can.“The algorithm is being a dick! It’s trying to push me to the next step in the sequence mapped out for women my age: Maintenance, which comes before Steady Decline. Before I turned 39 I was being served stuff that was about doing things! Or being sustainable, but make it weird! But now, the algorithm is like, ‘You should be worried about all the collagen you are losing. And also, you’re not getting enough fiber.’ But like, I don’t need to be maintained! My god! I haven’t even become yet!” [Keep reading]
🌡️
is being simultaneously intriguing and terrifying.Being alive is a remarkable balancing act between two cliff edges. When the temperature drops, we've only got a 10 degree margin of safety, a few paces backwards, before we're feeling the icy touch of death. [Keep reading]
✏️
is sharing invaluable resources.A few years ago, the animation industry vet Ron Doucet compiled a free Google Doc that he named Character Design Crash Course. It isn’t all his own original work — he cobbled it together from many, many, many sources. But it’s the biggest, most exhaustive resource on character design we’ve ever found online. [Keep reading]
Thank you for giving me a space in your inbox. Next week, the tiny story contest of July! See you then.
236. Monochrome is Enough Color Sometimes