I am learning to speak French. I make lots of mistakes, and I need to embrace the wonkiness. Just like I've learned to embrace the wonkiness when drawing. Even better, I now love the drawings that are wonky best
pronounced "Kōsha”
I’m an artist and creative entrepreneur living in the Netherlands. I love drawing and I do it every day. On this website, I hope to inspire you to develop a drawing practice too, because it can make you feel good.
Photo by Rick Keus
I am learning to speak French. I make lots of mistakes, and I need to embrace the wonkiness. Just like I've learned to embrace the wonkiness when drawing. Even better, I now love the drawings that are wonky best
Over the years I’ve been teaching, I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked, “How do you develop a drawing style of your own?” The answer is: you already have a style, even though you may not realize it.
Today I am sharing a video from the archives. Let's draw our non-drawing hand!
You can do a drawing in just five minutes, but it’ll give you so much more: a little meditative moment, escaping from everything going on, an interesting moment of studying shades and shapes, and a lot of joy.
I love how the sketchbook practice always brings surprises.
The pencil is a great tool, with wonderful features. When you add more pressure, you can get really dark areas, and with soft strokes, you can get the lightest tones possible. It's really kind of magic.
I have planned an extra online drawing session on May 25.
It’ll be at 5PM Amsterdam time, which is 11AM in NYC and 9AM in LA
Today I am approaching my subject with the continuous line drawing. Which means I am setting a rule: I can't pick up my pen anymore, once I started drawing. Every time I draw the subject in a different position, I will try and do it in just one line. It’ll be a fun challenge!
Food and Beverages in your sketchbook? You might not think what you eat is all that interesting, but wait until you start drawing it!
Maybe sometimes when you want to draw, you don't know what to draw.
When drawing from observation, whatever catches your eye is interesting enough to start drawing it. And it's actually the other way around: as soon as you start drawing something, it becomes interesting.
About a year ago, I couldn't quite imagine that I would be teaching workshops to groups of people in person. It's happening and you can join!
Watercolor is such a versatile medium. It seems hard to control, but then when you play a lot with it, you'll get to know the material and its behavior better. You'll get more confident using it in your sketchbook.
Today I am letting you flip though my latest sketchbook.
I love flipping through other people's sketchbooks, and this is what I want for my upcoming book: it should feel like you're going through one of my sketchbooks.
Making a watercolor background can help to get over the fear of the blank page. You can do a bunch of washes on random pages in your sketchbook, to surprise or challenge yourself.
Whenever things seem to become dull or boring, I’ll switch up tools and techniques to give myself variety and challenges. Here's an example of a small and accessible challenge for your sketchbook: I call it "drawing snippets", or a "sketch collage".
Today I am showing you the sketchbook pages I filled when I was in Paris a week ago. Going through these travel sketchbook pages brings me right back there! Come with!
In today's video, I am showing you the process of a digital illustration, done in Procreate on the iPad.
I can’t tell you nor advise you on what pen to use - it's too personal of a choice. But in today's video, I will show you one of my favorite pens, and how I use it in my sketchbook.
You can’t just sit around and wait for an idea to come to you. Picasso said it well: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
But the work doesn’t need to feel like “work” - make it as effortless and fun as you can, so you can dive right into the creative flow.
I love using brushpens.
It takes a bit of practicing to draw with a brushpen, so today, let's play with brush, ink and water.
I am not talking about brush markers, which are also great. I am talking about pens that are filled with ink like a fountain pen, but instead of a nib, they have a brush.