Drawing from Life with Shivam Choudhary

A joyful adventure of color, texture, and story. Prepare to be inspired!

When faced with a blank page, Shivam reminds himself, "A bad drawing is better than no drawing at all.”

His kindness, humor, and enthusiasm for creativity are infectious. Want proof? He shared the beautiful video and tips below to help you with your sketchbook practice.

Explore new materials and tools.

For example, oil Pastels and watercolours should not work well together since oil pastels are oil-based and watercolours as the name suggests are water-based, and water and oil don’t work well together. Even though I know this logic but I’d still push myself to actually try and see what will happen If I draw/paint something with oil pastels & watercolours, which eventually leads to very cool results.

Draw the same thing with a new/fresh approach.

For example, let's say you love to draw dogs. Maybe next time try drawing dogs with:

• your non-dominant hand

• continuous line drawing

• limited colour palettes

• or try drawing upside down

Draw new subjects

Maybe draw automobiles, buildings, people whatever you haven’t explored enough. The whole point of sketchbooks is to get confidence in creative intuition.

Draw outside of your sketchbook

Also, I would like to encourage people to not limit their practice just to sketchbooks but to explore beyond, recently I tried going for outdoor paintings and I carried my watercolour block to see how far I could push my work and I loved how much beating and water it can bear in comparison to sketchbooks.

So explore, experiment, fail, fail faster, and get your hands dirty my curious art friends.

Join the Shivam’s Dirty Hands Club on Patreon and draw with us live on June 28 in a special session!