We could build quite the neighborhood with your doodles of perpendicular buildings from last week—zoning laws be damned. The wide variety of doodles we saw really drove home the point: a single prompt can lead to such wonderfully different drawings. As always, thanks for sharing them with us. Much joy sparked.

This week we’re tackling something many people find challenging: drawing faces! There’s a reason art schools dedicate multiple semesters to the figure and the face. Even then, many artists find faces the hardest thing to get “right.” Luckily, we don’t give a hoot about “right.”

That said, there's something satisfying about picking up a basic skill and then deciding whether to use it or gleefully ignore it. There are some simple, fun ways to start training your mind’s eye. Once you get a feel for head shape and rough proportion, you can make any face you want—for real!

Way cheaper than art school!

You can also ignore all this and make a smiley face on a stick figure. NO RULES IN ART. But for folks wanting to learn the basics, we’ve tried to make it easy and fun and comprehensible.

Drawing faces!

Shape and position

Faces come in many shapes and sizes, but we’re going to start simple and introduce our model for the day:

First, let’s turn this egg into a basic face egg.

It’s a head! See that? (We know it seems like the eyes are too low, but trust us.) We can see which direction it is facing. The egg head above is facing forward. And when we turn it…

We can see how it looks when it turns, and begin to imagine how the face might look when we add on features, right? Here, this’ll make it a little easier:

Egg-sactly. Notice how you only see PARTS of the face, depending on where it’s facing. Sometimes you can’t see any parts of the face at all. Of course, this is a super flat face….So let’s see how it looks when we add a nose shape.

Getting there! Drawing a hyperrealistic face involves some complex steps, but understanding how the face works is the first step.

Proportion

Maybe you’ve seen these “general face guidelines” at some point. While they may be generally accurate, they are in NO way a rule or an “ideal.” These ideals were based on able-bodied, old white guys’ ideas of facial perfection (namely: young white guys) and have been used to oppress people. These rules, like all art rules, are a bunch of B.S. And at the same time, it’s useful to have a generalized foundation to push against. So Wendy drew us a new one:

Again, these are general guides, and not rules or ideals. But they are helpful to keep in mind, so when you are drawing a face from observation or imagination, you can ask yourself, “How does this person vary from the general guide?” That might help you decide how to place and adjust features.

Okay, it’s your turn! Let’s draw some faces.

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Last week’s assignment—to find the beauty in our messes—resulted in some fabulous drawings. Besides giving a peek into your homes and lives, you shared about the meaningful objects that surround you and the emotional side of the cleaning process. We always love seeing how you support each other in the chat, and this week was no exception. Three cheers for this (supremely messy) community!

Now onto this week’s VERY SERIOUS ART TOPIC…

The doodle.

Yes, the doodle. Let’s start with some words from our head doodler, WendyMac:

I’ve always doodled. I got in trouble in high school for doodling during class. I doodle while talking on the phone and during meetings. I make doodley grocery lists, to do doodle lists, electric bill doodles. Doodles everywhere. And I kind of just assumed everyone who draws doodles, too. But recently someone who draws told me he doesn’t doodle. WHAT?? He said he doesn't know how. My heart broke a little.

I thought doodling was hard baked into every visual person. Don’t we all mindlessly cover every surface with flowers and stars? Don’t we all relax by letting our pens flow into unexpected shapes and designs?? Maybe not after all.

This made me wonder: What is a doodle? And what makes a doodler doodle? Why doodle at all? Can a non-doodler become a doodler? And what do doodles DOOOO?

With that, let’s explore…The Doodle.

Doodling is more fun together!

Famous doodlers.

First, let’s look at some doodles by some folks who are not known for their drawing, but are impressive doodlers nonetheless.

Obama got in on the act, too, confessing in a 2012 interview to being “a pretty good doodler.” What does he doodle? “All kinds of things. Faces, people. So sometimes when I'm in a big important international meeting and you see me writing stuff down, it might be that I’m just drawing some, drawing some folks.”

Some might think that means the president wasn’t paying attention. But studies show the opposite—that doodling actually improves memory. (We’ll get to that in a minute.)

Doodle vs. drawing

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the doodle as “An aimless scrawl made by a person while his mind is more or less otherwise applied.”

Judging by the variety of styles in the images above, there are many different kinds of doodles: abstract, figurative, illustrative, you name it. What do they all have in common? They are loose. Like the OED states, you can see that the doodler didn’t set out with an idea of what they wanted their doodle to look like. It emerged organically through the doodling.

That’s one big difference between doodling and drawing. When we doodle we are concentrating on something and processing it by moving our pens around a page without thought or a goal. When we draw, we do it with intention. Even if it’s abstract and we don’t know how it is going to turn out, we are working towards the goal of making a complete drawing. (What do you think? We can debate this in the chat.)

What good does doodling do?

Oh my gosh, so much.

Let’s start with memory.

From Harvard Health Publishing:

In 2009, psychologist Jackie Andrade asked 40 people to monitor a 2 ½ minute dull and rambling voice mail message. Half of the group doodled while they did this (they shaded in a shape), and the other half did not. They were not aware that their memories would be tested after the call. Surprisingly, when both groups were asked to recall details from the call, those that doodled were better at paying attention to the message and recalling the details. They recalled 29% more information.

29% more information! Why? The researchers believe doodling helped people stay alert and engaged, brains focused just enough to avoid boredom.

Former teachers of ours: We were paying attention after all! We were downright presidential, come to think of it.

Does doodling reduce stress and anxiety?

Absolutely.

These researchers were measuring doodling’s impact on stress as far back as 1938! And this fascinating paper on doodling noted that “providing pencil and paper to the anxious, the distressed, and the disturbed might even have unexpected therapeutic benefits.”

Carol Edmonston, author of The Healing Power Of Doodling: Mindfulness Therapy To Deal With Stress, Fear & Life Challenges, says “doodling can actually help calm the racing mind and bring it back to a more quiet, restful space, not unlike meditation.”

But why???

Drawing and doodling are both physical experiences. They calm us down, lower our heart rate, deepen our breathing, and bring us into the present. And for those of us with jumpy or judgy minds, it’s medicine. There’s also surely magic in there, too—that specific mysterious thing that happens in our brains and hearts, when we keep our hands moving and breath flowing as we create something out of nothing, without fear of judgement.

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Alright, enough blah blah blah. Let’s make something!

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We were wowed by how you were all inspired by different songs last week. The contrasts that emerged as you switched between pieces were so cool! We were also glad to see you incorporate your own musical tastes into the process, and we will be working some of your recommendations into our own playlists for sure.

Here at the GUT, we are soooo excited for it to be spring! (Happy fall to our southern hemisphere folks!) But we have more complicated, maybe even rebellious, feelings about the annual rite of spring cleaning. Sure, we get it—nature gets a fresh start and so should our homes. And we’re not saying to leave your messes everywhere. But what if there were other ways to look at our clutter? Let’s get to it…

The beauty of clutter

In time for your possible spring cleaning urges, we want to revisit this dispatch from Wendy:

I have a confession.

Did you know that I, a creative person with one hundred various interests, can, from time to time, leave my space a bit messy? A tad cluttered? A wee bit “did a goddamn tornado touch down in here?”

Shocking, I know. Ask my neatnik parents, I’ve been this way since I was little. These days, I’ve confined my mess to “creative spaces” (read: Studio, Kitchen Table, Sofa, Everywhere, etc), but I still have a lot of stuff. Like many artists, I collect. Sometimes, those collections pile up and spread out. But I still know exactly where everything is. I swear, there is order in my chaos.

A mess is evidence of what’s happened before and a map of what might happen next. Now, if a space is unconsidered, left to build up over time, well that’s just careless. That’s when other people start to worry. But when someone is thoughtful about their spaces, they care about each object, label, and sort and arrange them just so… consider where they go and why, the meaning behind it all... it shows. That kind of clutter is a thing of beauty.

Today, we’re gonna explore the visual feast that is mundane clutter. Because if you can find beauty in the mess, you can see beauty anywhere.

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To get started, we’ll share a few of Wendy’s own mess-inspired drawings, and then we’ll invite you to embrace the clutter and create your own.

Ready? Great. Let’s get messy.

Wendy’s “messes”

Electrical wires

Walking around Kyoto’s Gion district with its cobblestone streets and women in full geisha attire is like stepping back in time. Until you look up. Above the building lives a thick rubber rainforest of modern electrical wires, criss-crossing, twisting, winding their way down the streets and alleys.

From Wendy:

Of all the typically beautiful things I could have drawn on that street, the wire web called my attention. Why? Maybe because its lines looked like a drawing against the sky? Or maybe because the wires told a story? After all, each wire connected to a home, a business, a shrine, a cable TV. Drawing the wires felt like examining the city’s insides, its exposed guts. Beautiful.

Garbage stories

In 2012, a developer hired Wendy to research and create a drawn story about the history of Pier 70, a historic and underutilized area of San Francisco. The developer wanted to learn about the neighborhood’s backstory, who was living and working there now, what people valued about it, and the cultures it contained.

What does this have to do with messes? Wendy learned about the neighborhood, in part, by walking the streets, looking down, and documenting the trash and detritus on each corner.

Documenting each corner’s detritus offered a new approach to portraiture, and a fresh perspective on the neighborhood. Sometimes, our garbage paints a clearer picture of who we really are than the objects we display on our mantels.

That’s beautiful!

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Garbage sale. Ahem, garage sale.

There are many ways to document a mess. It can be representational, like above. It can also be conceptual, abstract, text-based, or a map….

In 2012, the artist Martha Rosler held a Meta-Monumental Garage Sale in an atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The sale included objects donated by museum staff, the artist, and the public. Martha was on hand to haggle over higher-priced garbage gold. The garage sale/exhibition also included a newspaper designed by the brilliant designer/artist Kelli Anderson. She asked Wendy to create a “Conceptual Map” of a prototypical garage sale for the paper:

Wendy included not only the actual objects, but the emotional experience of a garage sale, with categories like “all the things we want to forget.” And “clothes we will fit in one day” next to “exercise bike.” And “Guilt (parents’ things).”

If you drew a map of your mess, what would you include? What would be too embarrassing to draw??

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Alright. With that inspiration, let’s turn our attention toward our own messes….

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We had a great time with Caroline Paul last week. We spent time gazing at the sky, experiencing awe, and (of course) drawing! How amazing to see all the pictures in the chat showing the sky’s changes through your eyes. Just beautiful! And FYI the winner of our Why Fly giveaway is at the bottom of this dispatch.

Now, onwards to our next adventure…

We might imagine Serious Artists (capital letters a must!) as people working in total, absolute silence, all the better to concentrate on their Serious Art (again with the caps, maybe even italics?). Meanwhile, we are over here, shamefully playing music or, gasp, even a movie in the background while we draw and paint.

But turns out all kinds of people (even Serious ones!) fill their ears while they make visual work. So this week, we are trying an experiment…

We are going to share about two artists we love and the music they listen to while they work. Then we will turn the tables and hear from the GUT’s own Chris Colin who, in addition to being an incredible writer, also makes music for people to draw to. Finally, YOU are going to draw while you listen to music, and we’ll see how music does/doesn’t inspire our drawing. Fun? Fun! Let’s do it.

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Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville is a phenomenal painter who combines classical training and influence with modern-day subjects and references, focusing on the representation of female bodies. She works at a GIANT scale, and often plays music while she draws and paints:

I’m pretty ruthless with music. I use music as a way to get in the right mood for what I want. I listen to things on repeat. So it's very annoying; if anybody were in my studio, they would just be going completely crazy, because I can listen to one single piece of music for the whole duration of an artwork, or even for a show.

While Jenny worked on her Mother and Child series (artwork above and below), she played "Weird Fishes” by Radiohead on repeat. “The repetitions of sounds and the layerings were a good companion for me at that time. And there's an urgency in the music that I liked,” she says.

Hit the play button below and listen to it yourself. While doing so, look at the drawing below and see if you feel a connection of influence, or if the music takes you deeper into the drawing at all.

Rashid Johnson

Rashid Johnson is one of the most exciting, respected artists working today. His career launched with a solo show in a prominent NY gallery at the age of 19. Shortly after, he was included in a pivotal show of emerging Black artists at The Studio Museum in Harlem, called Freestyle, curated by the fabulous Thelma Golden. Starting with photography and moving into multimedia sculpture and video, his body of work addresses history, art history, society, and self. While much of his work explores identity, he says, “My black-ness…[has] a strong effect on how my work is born and around the conversation that inevitably will happen, but I don’t think that it’s really the sum of all what my work is. And I think formally I’m trying to approach art-making in a way that is part of the bigger history of art.”

Turns out Rashid has a thing for jazz:

I’ve always had a real interest in improvisation and avant-garde jazz. So you'll hear a lot of Cecil Taylor in my studio, you’ll hear a lot of Ornette Coleman, you'll hear a lot of Art Ensemble of Chicago, some stuff that people would imagine as noise, some music that people may even be quite frustrated by.

Listen to “Lonely Woman” by Ornette Coleman below, and spend a few minutes looking closely at the artwork under it, by Rashid. See if you feel that connection or influence, or if the music pulls you deeper into the art.

It’s fascinating to see that both Jenny and Rashid think their listening habits would drive others away! But it’s what works for them. Like Jenny, Wendy finds that musical repetition plays a big role in her creative process as well: “When I’m really into a painting, I often loop the same song over and over as I paint. As a result, I forever associate the song with that art, book, or body of work. The song ‘Chickens’ by Junip will always remind me of Salt Fat Acid Heat, and ‘Business’ by Tune-Yards is the 6th street story in Meanwhile in San Francisco.”

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Now let’s change perspectives and hear from the other side: a music-maker for artists!

Chris Colin

When Chris isn’t pitching in with the GUT, he is busy writing fascinating magazine stories—and coming not-very-soonish, his next book. But music was always his favorite art form, starting at 16. What started as a liability—he swears he can’t sing—became oddly useful, when he realized word-free music was perfect for soundtracks, odd art projects, and drawing.

We asked Chris to share more about the role of music in his line of work and also how he thinks about what others might want to listen to while making art:

As a writer, I often like a little background music when I work, but not to put me in a certain mood, or to spark ideas, or anything like that. It’s purely to nudge me into a kind of trance—that hazy dimension where the kitchen table melts away, the inner critic melts away, and I’m stripped down to more foundational thoughts.

When I’m making music, particularly for drawing, I aim for a similar dimension: tones and melodies that are interesting enough, but don’t clobber you into focusing on them instead of that pileated woodpecker you’re painting. (Yes I can see what you’re painting.) Pulling some guitar or a bass line or some keyboard out of a composition is often more important than whatever I initially add.

Then I just repeat it over and over like a maniac. I once read a great quote from John Lennon about the holy power of repetition in music. I have no idea what it said. But it was so persuasive that I remember the sheer fact of it. Anyway, lotta repetition involved when I’m making this kind of music, and if it has some kind of hypno-amniotic effect beneath the surface, hell yeah.

Thanks, Chris! It’s so neat to see how the role of repetition keeps coming up in folks’ processes! We’re delighted to have you with us on this journey, and to have some of your music to share with our members!

And now it’s your turn!

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We’re so glad you’re here. The series of symbols you all drew were powerful! We saw folks grappling with global and personal events, commenting on corporate brands, and advocating for peace. You all were so inspiring in your messages and so creative in how you adapted familiar icons to your own purposes. Bravo!

This week we’re spending some time up in the clouds, with author Caroline Paul. You may know her better as Art Assistant Caroline if you were here for DrawTogether’s early years. She is also Wendy’s lovely ex, whose last visit with the GUT was to talk about her book, Tough Broad.

Caroline has a brand new book, Why Fly, that just came out a couple weeks ago! From Wendy: “Why Fly is a book about two kinds of flight: the kind we do in the sky and the kind we do in our hearts. And all the lifts and lights and dips and drops both entail.”

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We’re excited to have her here with us today for a Q&A!

Q&A with Caroline Paul, author of Why Fly

The GUT: This book is about flight, and also about relationships. Tell us about the connection between the two and why you wrote it at this time in your life.

Caroline: I have been flying since I was twenty. I loved flying. But I wasn’t obsessed until, at 58, I began to fly a gyrocopter. It looks like a tiny helicopter, or maybe like a lawn mower dangling under a rotor blade. My newfound ardor was no surprise: I began my ascent in gyros during the descent of my marriage with Wendy.

We reach for control in difficult times, and what better thing to control than a funny-looking aircraft that soars me high above my troubles. As I say in the book, “It’s easier to learn a landing than a human heart.”

I didn’t want to write about my personal life, but I did want to write about flight, and the two had become inextricable. That said, writers are in control of the story. There is a world in which I could have excluded my relationship with Wendy from the book. But that book would have been inauthentic, and readers would have felt the gap. Inauthenticity, as GUT readers know, is a death knell to good work.

The GUT: What do you get from being in the sky that you don’t get down here?

Caroline: Flying small, lightweight, open-cockpit aircraft is an all-body kinetic experience. Mentally, you are totally absorbed in all the requirements of flight—staying straight and level, looking for other planes in the sky, watching the terrain. Physically, you feel the wind, you feel the temperature changes, you feel the turbulence. Emotionally, you can’t help but be awed at the view below your feet, which changes constantly as you gain or lose altitude. From the pilot seat it looks as if some cosmic sculptor has been languidly chipping and chiseling; it really is an artistic experience.

This total absorption while in open cockpit flight is hard to match on the ground, except maybe when it comes to love. In the book I compare the two: Both are governed by tangibles—the laws of physics, and oxytocin, respectively—but both feel like magic when you’re in it.

Feeling inspired? Join us!

The GUT: How might our GUTsters capture some of what you get from flying (even if they can’t do it themselves)?

Caroline: The sky is mesmerizing from all angles. Even from the ground, it is like seeing a new painting every few minutes. There, a bird circling, now gone. Here, shifting cloud shapes. Over the course of the day the sky shades into the most amazing hues—it’s the richest color palette around. My favorite time is the half hour after sunset (also known by pilots as “civil twilight”) when the orange and yellows fade and only the deepest purples remain. Even at night, the constellations—those connections between stars that paint a picture and a story—represent the vivid imaginations of our ancestors. As an artist of any kind, you can’t help but be inspired by the sky.

My advice is to take the window seat next time you fly commercially. Let yourself be awed by the beauty and the strangeness of being so high in the air; as I say in my Tough Broad interview with the GUT, awe is vital for our creativity. Now look at the geometries below—it’s like an abstract painting. Let that view spark what you create next. This is what Georgia O’Keefe, that master of the landscape, did when she began to fly in passenger planes in the 1970s. She was gobsmacked by the birds-eye view. She soon began her famous cloud paintings. Her first in the series featured an island from above, but quickly she abandoned the landscape altogether and just painted clouds and sky, so taken was she by this new vantage point.

Thanks, Caroline! We have a giveaway of her book for GUT members in the assignment below, and we’re taking inspiration from Caroline’s time in the sky.

Let’s do this.

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Last week we kicked off the GUT Permanent Collection with an assignment inspired by the collages of Romare Bearden. So many of you mentioned enjoying the tactile aspect of collaging—the feeling of handling old magazines, letters, and scraps from your own histories and finding new ways to place them together. The chat was filled with tender memories of childhood and your hometowns. Some folks honored family members while others captured more of a feeling of their past selves. We loved seeing them all — thank you for sharing your stories with us.

Recent events have us thinking about the power of symbols. A couple weeks ago, the National Park Service took down the Pride flag at Stonewall National Monument—the Trump Administration had sent a memo about only flying authorized flags at park sites. This monument encompasses the area around the Stonewall Inn, which has enormous historical importance in the movement for gay rights; it’s the site of protests and riots against a 1969 police raid targeting its LGBTQIA+ patrons.

Community outcry over the flag’s removal was immediate, and within a couple days, city officials re-raised the flag during a public rally. Stacy Lentz, an owner of the Stonewall Inn, reflected on the Pride flag’s meaning, saying, “The flag is not just an abstract symbol; it tells L.G.B.T.Q. people, especially younger ones, that their history will not be sidelined again.”

These events, and the conversation over the power of symbols, reminded us of this dispatch from our permanent collection.

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Visual symbols

Let’s start off with the Pride Flag and a few other well-known visual symbols, and consider their context.

The Pride flag: Gilbert Baker (1955-2017) designed the original Pride flag in 1978. In his memoir, Rainbow Warrior, Gilbert discusses how he chose the rainbow:

A Rainbow Flag was a conscious choice, natural and necessary. The rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope. In the Book of Genesis, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures. It was also found in Chinese, Egyptian, and Native American history. A Rainbow Flag would be our modern alternative to the pink triangle. Now the rioters who claimed their freedom at the Stonewall Bar in 1969 would have their own symbol of liberation.

As the queer community evolves and its embrace of a wider range of gender and sexual identities and expressions grows, the flag evolves as well. The latest Pride flag, featured above with the circle, now includes people historically excluded from the fight for gay rights, including trans and non-binary people, people of color, and intersex folks. The Pride flag is a great example of how strong symbols can grow and change—not to mention some of the branding challenges that community activism faces. There’s a great book about this1 if you’re interested in reading more.

Raised fist/Black Power salute: A closed, raised fist is a universal symbol that represents power and resistance. In the ‘60s it was used by the Black Panthers and other civil rights groups and became known as The Black Power salute: a statement of defiance against oppression of Black people in the US.

It was later adopted by the Black Lives Matter movement. Groups around the world have used it as a symbol to represent the individual and collective struggle against systemic oppression.

Colorful balaclavas: Pussy Riot made these colorful face masks popular worldwide in the early 2010s, and they continue to represent a big middle finger from women and queer folks to oppressive regimes around the world. Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow. Their act is loud, hard, and fearless, promoting feminism, LGBTQ rights, and opposition to Putin and the Orthodox Church when it’s illegal to do so. Members perform in public wearing colorful balaclavas to avoid arrest. While several of the original members have left the band, Pussy Riot continues to exist with an “open invitation” for anyone to join.

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Using symbols for subversion

Symbols are easy to draw, and are universally read. This is part of their power: They can be reproduced and spread by anyone. And while symbols are simple in design, their meanings carry power. And…that power can be subverted, turned against itself.

Here are two takes on the American flag:

Winston Tseng is an artist and designer keeping this subversive tradition alive. Winston creates posters that use the advertising aesthetics of recognizable brands and simple straightforward language to make a statement.

Above is a campaign where he mixed Coke’s and Pepsi’s recognizable branding to comment on their contribution to plastic pollution. In 2024, he made a fake announcement that the Philadelphia Eagles had endorsed Kamala Harris for president! This caused a lot of confusion, leaving news sources scrambling to find out the story behind it. Winston eventually took credit for creating it, but said he had no idea how the posters ended up around town. ;)

Assignment: symbols & subversion

Alright, our turn to put this into practice. Ready?

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We’reeee baaaaccckkkk!

I missed you. Our 2026 30 Days of Drawing was EPIC, and we heard from a lot of you saying it was our best year yet. So happy to hear it. Also, we really needed that break afterwards to catch up on rest and life. Maybe you did, too.

I’ve been lurking in the chat and it’s been great to see members continue to share artwork, and in-person DrawTogether groups start to meet up! Remember, if you are interested in drawing IRL with GUT members, here is the thread to connect.

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Big News Alert:

Alright, I have some super exciting news to share with JUST folks here at DrawTogether/The GUT. I am not posting this on social media. No press announcement. No skywriting. This is exclusively for you because this announcement is deeply connected to what we do together at the GUT: I AM WORKING ON A BIG BOOK. 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

This book is the most meaningful, challenging, fun, exciting, and daunting thing I’ve ever made. Ever. And YOU are a part of it. WE are a part of it. You’ll see. My wonderful editor won’t let me say more, but I promise you it will be well worth the wait.

Got questions? Comments? (Be kind, please. A book is hard!) You know what to do:

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Also, it turns out the writing and drawing of a book is a total commitment. (Yup, I’m doing both.) It requires a kind of singular focus I’ve never had to summon before. In order to do it, I’m heading off into the woods (quite literally, Thoreau-style) to give it my all for a little while. In the meantime, we will share some of our favorite DT/GUT drawing lessons and assignments in a special series we are calling “Selections from The GUT Permanent Collection.” It’s a great chance to practice some of my favorite lessons and drawing practices from the past six (!) years, with a few bonus twists and tricks to keep you on your toes.

I promise to do my very best to return with a book worthy of your time and attention. And I promise you will see YOURSELF in its pages. Our community has taught me so much, and together we have a lot to teach the world. So stick with me, folks. Soon, the world will be Drawing Together. :)

Sound good? Before I kick us off, a quick reminder: This is the last week to access the posts and assignments from this year’s 30 Days of Drawing! They will be archived on Saturday, February 28. If you missed the celebratory closing Zoom, you can watch the recording here.

And so, without further ado, my dear GUT peeps, may I introduce…

Let’s do this.

With February being Black History Month, we wanted to bring back a favorite dispatch of mine: a collaboration between the GUT and the National Gallery of Art, celebrating the life and work of Romare Bearden. An artist and activist, Bearden is best known for his collages depicting the lives and experiences of Black Americans.

Who was Romare Bearden? 

Born September 2, 1911, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Romare Bearden was of Cherokee, Italian, and African descent. He was the only child of college-educated, middle-class parents. But even for Black families who’d attained a measure of stability and status, life in the Jim Crow South was limiting, oppressive, and often violent.

When Bearden was three, his family joined the Great Migration—the journey taken by some 6 million Black Americans out of the constrictions of the South. Bearden’s family made their way to New York, eventually settling in Harlem.

In 1920, Harlem was an epicenter of music, art, and culture—and Bearden’s family was in the thick of it. A newspaper columnist and civic and political activist, his mother was a local powerhouse. She and her husband hosted cultural icons, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, and Langston Hughes.

After impromptu art lessons from a neighbor at age 14, Bearden began studying painting and drawing seriously. He attended New York University, where he met Elmer Simms Campbell, the first Black cartoonist for publications like the Saturday Evening Post and the New Yorker. It was a life-changing friendship. Bearden began making cartoons and illustrations for publications such as the NAACP’s magazine The Crisis.

After graduating from NYU in 1935, he continued taking classes at the Art Students League of New York. To support himself, he became a (drum roll….) case worker for the city’s department of social services! That’s right: He served the city as a social worker for almost three decades. A little aside: If you’re familiar with our fearless leader, Wendy, you probably know she’s also a trained social worker!

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Bearden continued his case work until just two years before his solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971! And he was only the second Black artist to have a solo show at MoMA.

How did Bearden begin collaging?

Fun fact: Bearden didn’t start working with collage until he was 53 years old. The word collage comes for the French word “coller,” meaning “to glue.” Collaging is the practice of assembling, arranging, and adhering smaller pieces together to create a larger whole.

Until the mid-1960s, Bearden focused almost exclusively on painting and drawing. That all changed after he began gathering with other Black artists, including Ernest Crichlow, Norman Lewis, and Richard Mayhew, to discuss how they, as artists, could support the civil rights movement. They formed Spiral, an artists’ collective, and Bearden suggested the group collaborate on a piece, offering collage as a medium. While Spiral did not take up that project, the conversation sparked Bearden’s interest in experimenting with collage himself.

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Bearden went straight to work in his studio and produced a series of small, vibrant collages. Pulling from many different sources and using colorful, patterned papers, he focused these works on the vibrant Black life at the time. Those collages launched the huge body of work he is known for today.

What a great reminder that failure only happens when we stop trying. We never know what we are going to make next, as long as we keep creating. Romare’s idea for a group project was rejected, but it opened the door for a lifetime of his own artwork. Challenges = creative opportunities.

Bearden passed away in 1988 at the age of 76, in Harlem. He was making art until the day he died.

Tomorrow I May Be Far Away

One of Bearden’s most famous collages, Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, is in the National Gallery’s collection. And it is a giant. Measuring 46 by 56 inches, it’s made with various papers, charcoal, graphite, and paint on paper mounted to canvas. You can get a sense of it in the image below, but you really have to see it up close to appreciate the intricacy and complexity. It’s clear how much time and care Bearden took.

Bearden’s influences were deep and wide, often tied to his own memories. Take a look at the patterned paper all around the main figure in the piece. Bearden used cutouts to create a shingled building, typical in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where he was born. Even after settling in Harlem, Bearden often visited family in the South.

He also looked to art history—both European and African—and Black culture, literature, and music like jazz and the blues. The work’s title, Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, is a lyric from the song “Good Chib Blues,” recorded in 1929 by Edith Johnson. Take a listen below. You can imagine Bearden hearing this music while piecing together this collage in his studio. Using the lyrics as his title makes music a medium in the work. Truly multi-media.

This piece summons the memories, textures, and half-remembered fragments we carry with us—the ones that quietly shape who we are. It calls us back to family, to community, to the particular feeling of childhood that still lives somewhere inside us.

How about you?

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With that dose of inspiration, let’s pick up our papers, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, wrapping paper, and painted bits and bobs—and draw with our scissors…

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Well, that was a hard week. I don’t know about you, but judging by the chat this past week and my own inside weather, I think most of us are ready to wave a big fat goodbye to 2025. We need a fresh start. It might not solve everything, but at least we can turn a page. I look forward to starting the year off right with all of you, together.

Anticipation for 2026’s 30 Days of Drawing

January 1 is right around the corner — along with our 30 Days of Drawing!! Next week I’ll send you a big old download on The Plan, but just know that if you are member/paying subscriber, you are IN.

If there is someone you think would benefit from 30 Days of Drawing and weekly lessons to keep their creative practice and community going and growing through the year, you can GIVE THEM THE GIFT OF THE GUT for the holidays.

Give the Gift of the GUT

I made a downloadable gift certificate so you can copy/paste or print out and gift to someone looking to start or deepen their creative life and community. That includes YOU. But it is a cute last-minute gift, right?

Click here to purchase a gift membership for an art-curious/creative-oriented special someone in your life:

Give the Gift of the GUT

Now let’s get back to reflection.

Reflecting on 2025

Last week we featured the most popular GUT lessons of 2025, and I loved seeing all the ways you revisited those lessons in the chat. Some of you shared new connections you made to an assignment, and others challenged themselves to take on ones they had missed or avoided. I continue to be so grateful for this community and how you support and cheer on each other.

This week we’re continuing to look back at the year. I’ve asked the members of the GUT team (aka the world’s best humans) what their favorite lessons were from this year. Bonus. I also thought it would be nice for you all to get to know them a little better as they do so much to keep this thing going!

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The GUT Team’s Favorite Posts of 2025

Anne’s Pick

Anne Mercogliano is the GUT’s strategic superhero. She helps set up and manage the team and systems and structures so I can keep doing this with you all for the long haul, and still keep up my own art practice. Anne is also planning some awesome, bold, audacious future goals with DrawTogether. Stay tuned! Her 2025 pick is:

Anne says, “‘What Can We Do’, is special to me because the community sharing their photos actually made me tear up. Labor day is one of those holidays that I feel like gets run over with the wheel of year turning us back to a more frantic schedule and pumpkin spice lattes coming even earlier every year. It is a day to celebrate all our labor and work and this assignment made me consider making this a personal holiday tradition.”

Art Auntie Kathleen’s Pick:

Art Auntie Kathleen is both a member of the community and a leader - she encourages, applauds, entertains, helps, and keeps this amazing group of artists connected in the chat, welcomes people in the intro section, and helps answer questions in the comments. We love you AAK! Her pick is:

She says, “I had coincidentally taken an online workshop on woven drawings earlier in the year and loved it. That was around the time of the tondo assignment (another favorite), so I posted a couple of woven tondos in that chat. I really like using my hands in a different way, yet with paintings, and creating something entirely surprising.”

Kyle’s Pick:

Kyle Ranson-Walsh works behind the scenes of DrawTogether answering everyone’s tech questions at the commmunity@ email, and he has been curating the GUT Gallery every week for two years, making sure an inspiring diversity of people and artwork is always featured. Kyle loves getting to know all of you from your drawings. Outside of DT, Kyle is a designer, writer, and dad to a DT daughter. His pick:

Kyle says, “One of the many reasons I love the GUT is that Wendy introduces us to so many new, incredible artists. I loved learning about Edie Fake’s approach to large scale works that transform physical architecture into spaces of imagination and possibility. I’m a former wannabe architect who can lean a little too into clean lines and neutral palettes. Edie’s work challenges my sense of color and shapes in the best way. Wendy’s included prompt is an invitation for each of us to dream up places for our own communities to safely gather—and to do it beautifully.”

Candace’s Pick:

Candace Chen joined the team earlier this year as the GUT’s awesome editor. She helps me transform my thoughts and ideas into the posts you read by compiling research, formatting and labeling images, and adding her own voice. With her history background, she has also become the unofficial archivist, helping keep track of the HUNDREDS of GUT lessons. Her pick is:

Candace says, “This lesson contains so much of what I love about the GUT all in one place. There’s curiosity, there’s storytelling, and there’s reflection. As a historian and educator, I am also deeply inspired by how artists interpret and comment on the past — they open up vital and profound ways to understand and connect to history. What Wendy Red Star says about collaborating with her ancestors is so powerful.”

Thank you GUT team! LOVE YOU GUYS TO THE MOON. Truly, I could not keep this going without you.

Be part of the GUT in 2026

Alright, now that the team has shared theirs, will you share yours?!

What was your favorite lesson and assignment from 2025?

I’m curious to hear what YOUR favorite was from the year? Leave a comment below and let me know which you vote for. It’s all fascinating to hear, and helpful for us to learn from. What landed, what didn’t. What you want more of, etc. Let us know your faves!

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And now, time for our weekly drawing assignment….

The Assignment: ENCORE!!

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Alright, let’s get into it. Cartooning New Yorker style with Asher Perlman last week was a hoot. Asher recently joined Substack, so now you can get his anti-depressants delivered directly to your inbox.

Special sale for the 30 Days of Drawing.

If you are a free subscriber and want to do the 30 Days of Drawing with me in January (YES YOU DO!) then we have a special access sale starting now. For a limited time, we are lowering the price of our annual subscription to $50/year. BOOM. For folks who want to subscribe to January only, we are upping the price for the monthly subscription only from January and February. This will help support the huge extra effort on our end, the cost and crew. I recommend grabbing the discounted annual while it’s still there. Because honestly, you’re going to want to keep drawing, keep getting the assignments, and stay involved with the supportive GUT community after you’ve rocked the 30 days. (For those of you who are already subscribers, don’t worry, your monthly will not go up.) So get those pencils sharpened…

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Alright, let’s dive into this week.

To grow in the direction we want to, it’s healthy to look back to see how far we’ve come. For the next two weeks, we’re reflecting on a big year of change and creativity. Starting with YOUR favorite DrawTogether GUT drawing lessons and assignments.

Looking Back at 2025

We started with an incredible 30 days of drawing, celebrated our 5-year anniversary with a big retrospective, and built a real life physical STUDIO space to support local artists and give affordable opportunities for people to connect with one another in person through creative practice.

The GUT reached the milestone of having over 100,000 community members, and partnered with the de Young Museum, and with SFMOMA, and the Ruth Asawa estate to host in person events so we could gather in person and Draw Together. We engaged with current events via a series on Creative Action beyond protest posters, and played with some Overlooked Art Supplies. Our team at the GUT expanded by adding an editor, Candace (yay, Candace!) Our incredible line-up of guest artists included: taking care of our creative bodies with Bonnie Tsui, exploring watercolor with Jessie Kanelos Weiner, visual storytelling with Debbie Millman, breathing and drawing with Carissa Potter, weaving social justice into our everyday practice with coach Beth Pickens, list making to with Ali Liebegott, noticing with Tucker Nichols, getting inspired by ballpoint queen Jacqueline Suowari and tape muralist/illustrator Brian Rea, and cartooning with Asher Perlman. Along the way we built skills working with a variety of materials and in understanding value, and we had great conversations with Courtney Martin and W. Kamau Bell!

All of this is possible because of those of you who support DrawTogether with a subscription. THANK YOU. For supporting this vision, this community, the world we are creating, and just for being you.

Subscribing = Supporting

Top 5 Lessons of the Year

While we’re not that into rankings and hierarchy around here, we love seeing which lessons really struck a chord with our members, so we’re featuring the 5 most popular lessons of the year!

Drawing in the Round

We celebrated the art of Betty Blayton-Taylor, a Black artist, educator, and activist, whose life and incredible work in the round deeply inspired me AND many of you to create your own amazing round drawings and paintings.

All the Wrong Colors

Have you ever seen a painting where the colors weren’t real to life, but still worked somehow?! That’s value at work! In this lesson, we played around with using colors based not on hue, but on their value — their lightness or darkness. This one was a bit of a mind-bender, and I was delighted that so many of you leaned into the challenge of using the “wrong” colors!

Ruth Asawa’s Flowers (no paywall!)

If you’ve been with us a while, you know that Ruth Asawa has been such a huge inspiration to me throughout my life, not just as an artist but as a human being. I was gobsmacked by the incredible retrospective of Ruth Asawa’s work at SFMOMA (now at MoMA in NYC). In this first post for our three-part series on Ruth’s life and work, we focused on her amazing flower drawings. As I said then, when we look at Ruth’s flower drawings, we don’t just see a flower, we see the time, care, and attention Ruth put into it. We feel it.

Making Art During Fascism (no paywall!)

We find ourselves in hard times for free and creative expression, but artists are still standing up with courage and conscience. We applauded artist Amy Sherald for her bravery and integrity in pulling her show from the National Portrait Gallery after the Smithsonian proposed including “anti-trans” views as part of the presentation of her painting Trans Forming Liberty.

For all of us asking “what can we do?”, I turned to my friend Beth Pickens who wrote a pamphlet called “Making Art During Fascism” after Trump’s 2016 election: “Historically, during oppressive regimes and fascist governments, it is the brave and creative ones who lead, who solve problems, incite, inspire, organize, comfort, satirize, and reflect. Your work will be more important than ever. You have no idea who needs the art you are making.”

Let *us* eat Cake!

I’m going to go back to what I said in the post:

When times are tough and injustice is rampant at the highest levels, we must speak up, resist, and fight. And, at the same time, it’s also important to remind ourselves of what we are fighting for. If we lose track of the joy and love we want to see in the world, then what is the point of the struggle? Enter cake.…

Experiencing moments of joy, beauty, and pleasure together reminds us of the direction we want to grow in, and what want to experience more of in our lives.

The Assignment: Draw with Fresh Eyes

If you’ve done these drawing assignments before, GREAT. In art school, the professors have you draw the same things twenty times. The reason: every time we use a familiar subject or assignment to create a new drawing it offers a new experience. New experience equals new result.

Our assignment this weeks offers us an opportunity to revisit not only an assignment, but an approach. Choose one of the assignments above that speaks to you. This week, draw it again, but with all the learning and experience you’ve had since we first shared it. As you draw, consider how your new drawing reflects how you’ve grown and changed since your earlier attempt. After you’re finished, members, the chat is open to share your drawings and some reflection on the process.If you want to include your old and new drawing next to each other in the chat, awesome — love to see and hear how you have grown and changed.

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The drawings that came from last week’s lesson — Draw the Tough Stuff — were beautiful and profound. My hat is off to all of you GUT members who bravely shared your work in the GUT Group Chat. And, as they say, comedy = tragedy + time. So it only makes sense that this week we make a hard pivot towards some hilarity. That’s life: up and down and up again. First, though…

The 30 Days of Drawing is coming soon!!

QUICK UPDATE: The 30 DAYS OF DRAWING begins January 1. We will share more details soon, but I wanted to give you the heads up so you can start planning. Soon we will share some LIVE ZOOM dates (!) to put on your calendar, and introduce a few changes we’re excited about that will make this year even more fun and accessible to all, including gifts and accountability groups. Start thinking about who you want to start off your 2026 with… We’ll share more details next Sunday and in the weeks to come. Feel free to start asking questions in the comments. Art Auntie Kathleen and I will answer!

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Alright, as we kick off the last month of 2025, let’s take some time to reflect on this year — the ups and downs, the silly and the bittersweet. This week we have a great conversation and assignment for you: a visit with a dream guest artist, New Yorker cartoonist Asher Perlman. I can’t think of a better way to practice keeping a positive, light-hearted perspective on times like these than thinking like a NYer cartoonist. So it’s an honor to introduce you to one of the funniest writers/drawers working today — and get his tips on cartooning. So without further ado, here’s….

Guest Cartoonist Asher Perlman

Asher Perlman has two absolute dream jobs: Emmy-nominated staff writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (!!) AND cartoonist for the New Yorker. There’s no denying he is a funny, funny man (who is also a performing comedian!), but he is clearly also a hard-working and persistent person. It takes a lot more than filling out an application to get those two jobs.

Asher’s cartoons capture what I love most about comics: they pack in the most story into the barest amount of information. And as you get to know him and his work, his cartoons are so definitely his voice and his style.

Draw with us, develop YOUR voice

As he started drawing more and more, he basically got the same advice that Josef Albers gave to our beloved Ruth Asawa about drawing flowers — but about cartoons. Asher says that a friend told him, “It looks like you’re trying to make a New Yorker cartoon, and they already have those. Make an ‘Asher cartoon’ that could be in The New Yorker.”

In addition to his cartoons for the New Yorker, he has two books out, Well, This is Me and his latest hilarious collection, Hi, It’s Me Again. (Highly recommend!)

We are so glad he has joined us for a Q&A! Please welcome Asher!

Q&A with Asher Perlman

Wendy: Congrats on the new book — can you tell us a little about it? What is your favorite cartoon in the book?

Asher: Thank you! It’s a pretty straightforward collection of my cartoons. Most of the toons in the book are brand new and can’t be found anywhere else, and the rest are plucked from The New Yorker and my Instagram. It also has a narrative through line, which is something I did for my first book, too, where I give a peek into my creative process.

As far as a favorite goes, I really couldn’t say. I love all of my children equally.

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Wendy: Could you tell us more about how you started drawing cartoons?

Asher: It was a pandemic hobby that I somehow turned into a career. I drew a lot as a kid and I always wanted to try my hand at cartooning, but it was one of those passions that I kept moving to the back burner as I prioritized other things, like writing and acting. Then, in 2020, when we went into lockdown, all the comedy theaters I was performing at closed down and my job at The Late Show went remote, so I suddenly had all this free time and had to fill it somehow. Enter: cartooning. I started drawing every day and submitting 5-10 cartoons to The New Yorker every week. I haven’t missed a week since.

Wendy: I read that you draw every day. What do you get out of it, and how has that changed you?

Asher: I do! Right after I wake up, I always sit at my desk and complete three pages of free writing. Then I move into drawing. I’m not totally sure how it’s changed me, but I find the whole routine quite calming, and I love being creative first thing in the morning rather than having it loom over me all day.

Draw with us every day in January!

Wendy: I heard your dad is an artist. What does he think of cartoons?? (I ask because I went to art school and there was such a stupid snobby bias against comics at the time. I think that’s died off, thankfully, but still, I wonder if your dad’s artwork had any influence on you.)

Asher: Actually, my dad loves cartoons. When I was growing up, he exposed me to a wide range of comics, from Mad Magazine to R. Crumb. So, luckily, no snobbery in the Perlman household.

Wendy: Do you have any tips for people who want to get better at drawing cartoons?

Asher: My main tip is to do it every day. Admittedly, that’s my tip for all creative pursuits, but I really do think that it’s key. If you do something every day, even if you don’t feel like it, you inevitably get better. When I was younger, I used to wait for inspiration to strike before I’d get started on something. I feel like that’s the worst strategy because it takes the process completely out of your control.

Are you ready to get started drawing?

Thanks so much, Asher! Be sure to pick up a copy of Asher’s hilarious new book Hi, It’s Me Again. Seriously. The tin man?? COME ON. LOLOLOLOLOL.

Alright, for GUT members we have tips on making a great cartoon from Asher, plus our week’s assignment. Sharpen your pencils….

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How did we all do?? Everyone survive? Thrive even? Get enough to eat? Help others get enough to eat?? I hope everyone is feeling at peace post-complicated-holiday, and enjoying some well-deserved rest.

This week, I want us to continue using our creativity to cultivate gratitude, but from a different angle. Instead of focusing on the immediate, obvious things we appreciate around us, we’re going to explore developing gratitude when life feels hard. Maybe even gratitude for life being hard.

It feels like the right moment to bring this lesson back from the archives (especially after last week’s return to another favorite: the 5 senses gratitude practice). There is so much to be grateful for. And at the same time, so much is hard right now, personally and politically, locally and globally. How we perceive and respond to what’s happening in our lives and in the world matters. We may not get to choose what happens, but we can choose how we respond.

This week, we’ll use drawing to strengthen our gratitude muscle so it’s there for us when we need it most.

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Practicing Gratitude in Hard Times

Anyone lucky enough to live through their 20s will agree: we learn the most from our mistakes and tough times. But when we’re in the midst them… whew. Hard times feel like forever, like things will never change. But then… time goes on. And things change. A little at first. Or all at once. And later, when we look back, the experience looks different. It still sucks. But we can also see what came before and what came after. If we are lucky (and work at it) we find things to be grateful for. We can be grateful for who it helped us become.

All this makes me think of a quote I shared earlier from author and monk David Steindl-Rast, known at the “Grandfather of Gratitude.”

So yeah, finding gratitude — even joy — in hard times. That’s what we’re doing today: getting grateful for the tough stuff.

But first, a poem.

This poem is by the US’s former poet laureate Ada Limón. It’s called “Instructions on Not Giving Up”.

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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What I love about his poem is how Ada brings us into a present moment of explosive joy and beauty by painting so vividly with her words (much like how you called on your senses to draw last week’s assignments.) And then come the other seasons, when the tree loses its hues (you can imagine it brittle and barren) and then becomes a green tree again. “A return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess in us, the hurt, the empty.” This is a poem about resilience. About life’s different seasons. And how if we keep our eyes open and pay attention, we learn so much from each of them.1

Okay, now onto our drawing prompt for the day. I can’t wait to see what you all create and share, and how much we all learn from our hard experiences. <3

Assignment: Gratitude for the Tough Stuff

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So, so happy you’re here.

Quick announcement for anyone interested in exploring a fully-funded residency: Applications are open for North Coast Project, a fully-funded, environmentally-focused residency for artists and writers. Deadline to apply is December 15! Check it out.

Last week, we learned about the work of three Indigenous artists I deeply admire: Wendy Red Star, Jeffrey Gibson, and Dyani White Hawk. All three artists incorporate elements of their ancestry into their art, which led to our assignment to draw in collaboration with your ancestors. You created so many moving, beautiful tributes to those who made you who you are. One drawing that really moved me: GUT member Heather shared her experience of being an orphan and choosing the moon as their ancestor since their family was “Somewhere Out There.” Thank you for trusting us with your stories and for the support you give each other. Love you, GUT members, my chosen creative family. ❤️

Maybe it’s turning 50, but I have been feeling extra grateful lately. For the next two weeks, we’ll return to some earlier gratitude-focused drawing lessons, and use our hands to open up our hearts.

As I’ve said here pretty much every year, I have mixed feelings about the holiday. Its origins are in the genocide of the Native American people. At the same time, it’s become an annual celebration of family, community, and care (and food!). It can be hard for us humans (me!) to hold two disparate truths at once as we move forward. But it’s so important that we do. So HOW can we build that non-binary muscle?

One way we can start to hold multiple truths at once is by cultivating an “abundance mindset.” A person with an abundant mindset believes there are enough resources for you AND me to accomplish BOTH our goals. My experience doesn’t threaten yours, and yours doesn’t threaten mine. There is space for us both. We can also call this a “Both/And” world view, instead of an “Either/Or” outlook (also known as a deficit mindset.)

Truth be known, as an only child with a tendency towards “black or white” thinking, I struggle to let go of an “Either/Or” deficit mindset. I have to really practice “Both/And”-ing my way through the world. But I’m finding it’s so worth the effort. With it comes a far a more abundant, curious, hopeful, joyful, and relaxed experience in day-to-day life and relationships. It opens things up instead of closing them down.

One of the best ways to build an abundance mindset is to practice gratitude. Studies show that in addition to combating depression and burnout, practicing gratitude helps cultivate that abundant “Both/And” outlook.

Two important note about gratitude:

1. If we don’t or can’t muster up gratitude in the moment, that’s okay. Take a breath. Beating ourselves up about not feeling more grateful sure doesn’t help. First and foremost, be kind and gentle with your tender self. Meet yourself where you’re at. Be grateful for being here.

2. Being grateful on the inside does not preclude us from being engaged with the world on the outside. Gratitude is essential to connect with the world in a generative, just and impactful way. When we don’t practice gratitude, it is easy to take things for granted and shift into a deficit mentality. Gratitude helps us tap into our deeper selves and create space. Be present with one another. Stay connected. And take action in ways that move us all towards a more equitable and just future.

Powerful, right? And drawing can help us build it?? Yes it can.

Let’s get into it.

Show your gratitude for the GUT

What is gratitude?

In an essay for Greater Good Magazine, leading gratitude researcher Robert Emmons writes:

First, [gratitude] is an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received… Second, we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.1

Often we put our attention on things we have not done, and do not have. All we see is lack. An ungrateful person asks “What don’t I have? What’s next?” That leaves us feeling competitive, anxious, and isolated.

Conversely, a grateful person asks themselves “What do I have? What is now?” That mindset keeps us focused on the present, appreciating the good things around us, recognizing abundance, and reframing challenging moments into positive experiences. You know that old adage “Where we place our attention grows”? Placing our attention on gratitude helps us grow towards abundance for us, and others.

The documented benefits of practicing gratitude are profound.2 On a personal level, it makes us feel happier.

It also helps us live longer. From a study out of UC Berkeley:

Focusing on the positive and feeling grateful can improve your sleep quality and reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. Furthermore, levels of gratitude correlate to better moods and less fatigue and inflammation, reducing the risk of heart failure, even for those who are susceptible.3

Zoom out a little, and gratitude sets a course for our day-to-day decisions. How grateful we are can determine how we show up for others in our families, community, and the greater world.

Again, cultivating a grateful mindset is not an excuse to turn away from hardship. Quite the opposite. In the most challenging moments, we need to cultivate that Both/And abundance mentality to move forward in a more equitable and just direction, together. In our families, communities and in the larger world.

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Getting Grateful Through Our Senses

When we are experiencing anxiety or stress, one of the best ways to bring ourselves into the moment is to pay attention to our senses. When our feelings are not serving us, paying attention to our senses can also help us focus on what IS around us instead of what is NOT. Focusing on our senses can help us see the world through a gratitude lens.

Some time ago, author Gretchen Rubin joined the Grown-Ups table and taught us about her Five Senses Portrait, and we created one in collaboration with her, GUT style. (Members can access that assignment here.)

Today I’m giving you gratitude-focused twist on that powerful assignment.

(Personally, I found this simple exercise super fun and meditative and helpful. My drawing is below. I’d love to hear what you think of it, too.)

Let’s do this.

Assignment: Drawing Gratitude

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Last week, we wrapped up our series on Overlooked Art Supplies. Our last material: the tiny yet triumphant Post-it! You responded (as usual) with amazing 3x3 work of your own - from animation to bookmaking to mapping - this low-stakes assignment encouraged everyone to take a risk and try a approach. I LOVE to see it it. Members can view and participate in the GUT Gallery - check it out here.

ICYMI, be sure to check out all our overlooked art supply lessons, including the wonders of ballpoint pens, and the underappreciated masking tape. These are great for educators and classrooms, too. Speaking of underappreciation and learning…

It’s Native American Heritage Month here in the United States, and DrawTogether is focusing on Indigenous artists in both the Grown-Ups Table, and over in our educational non-profit, DrawTogether Classrooms. If you are an educator of any sort and would like to bring more art and social emotional learning into your community FOR FREE, join us.

Join the GUT = support DT Classrooms

Alright, let’s dive in.

Native American Heritage

While a month is certainly not enough time to do justice to the infinite contributions of Native Americans, it’s a good reminder to pause and look closely at Indigenous narratives, and how often Native Americans’ stories are overlooked or silenced in the US. It’s also important to emphasize that Indigenous people are still here, still a huge part of our country and culture, and are making incredible, powerful art. This is something I want to learn a lot more about. Maybe you do, too. So let’s use this opportunity to explore the work of three contemporary Native artists whose art engages deeply with their heritage while also speaking to our present and future.

Let’s start with the artist Wendy Red Star.

Learn > Appreciate > Create

Wendy Red Star, Apsáalooke (Crow)

Multidisciplinary artist Wendy Red Star was an imaginative and curious child. Growing up on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana, she was always asking questions and loved to draw. But when she went to high school off the reservation, she had that common experience: she was told there is only “right way” to draw. It had to be representational and realistic or it wasn’t art. Wendy promptly stopped drawing and pivoted to graphic design, which she majored in along with Native American Studies.

When Wendy returned to making art, she realized how much she’d already learned years ago from her grandmother who she watched sew and make traditional clothing. As Wendy traced her own heritage and ancestry, she began to make art her own way — less from scratch, and more like a collaboration or conversation with her ancestors.

She first gained renown with work she made in graduate school, Four Seasons. She posed in colorful garments next to inflatable animals and fake backdrops in a cheeky critique of stereotypes and museum dioramas portraying Native people. By placing herself in the image, she called attention to history’s focus on men — warriors and chiefs (that is, if American history features Native people at all) — and demanded a greater focus on women.

Intrigued by historical photographs of a Crow delegation that traveled to Washington, DC, in 1880, she noticed how the images were shaped by a white gaze — yet still held the beauty of Crow clothing and culture. She began tracing and annotating the photos, reclaiming them by pointing out details and restoring their context.

Curiosity > Attention > Care

Jeffrey Gibson, Mississippi Band of Choctaw and Cherokee

You may remember we looked at the work of Jeffrey Gibson earlier this summer in our Beyond Protest Posters lesson. Since his work deserves a thousand (million!) revisits, let’s take another look.

Jeffrey Gibson draws upon his Indigenous heritage, Queer identity, American and global history, as well as pop culture, to create vibrant paintings, sculptures, and videos. Even as he addresses painful histories of oppression, there is a pride and joy that emanates from his colorful work — an insistence on recognizing the resourcefulness and resilience of Indigenous and other marginalized peoples. In 2024, Jeffrey was the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo show at the Venice Biennale, and those works were recently on view at the Broad in Los Angeles. In the room above, ancestral figures with beaded text referring to Reconstruction and legislation affecting the civil rights of Black and Indigenous Americans flanked a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr., advocating for us to see ourselves in relation to history and our own agency.

Throughout his career, Jeffrey has incorporated history into his work. Both of his parents were put into boarding schools where horrific abuses occurred as white reformers sought to strip students’ heritage and culture away. The first step was often cutting their hair. His Biennale show included a series of pieces related to that history: a painting with a quote from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and a series of busts with glorious hair and intricate beadwork. The way the pain in that quotation is met by the joy and defiance of its colors and the nearby busts? Wow.

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Dyani White Hawk, Sičáŋǧu Lakota

Like Red Hawk and Gibson, Dyani White Hawk is best known for her abstraction. (What is abstraction? That means that the art is not representational but simplifies or abstracts images through color, line and form.) Much of her work is grounded in her Lakota heritage, but she also cites postwar artists like Agnes Martin and Mark Rothko as influences. (Both big abstractors that we’ve talked about a lot in the GUT.) Yet she points out that abstract art is not a recent European invention, and has been present in Indigenous communities for centuries.

Here’s a video on Dyani’s work from the wonderful PBS series Art 21:

White Hawk currently has an exhibition of her work up at the Walker Art Center, in her hometown of Minneapolis. The centerpiece is a sound and video installation titled Listen. She worked with filmmaker Razelle Benally and travelled across America gathering recordings of Native women speaking in their languages. White Hawk points out that even if we aren’t fluent in a language, we can often identify what that language is when it’s Spanish or German… but how many Indigenous languages could you identify by sound? (Such a pointed, humbling question. I remember when I was driving in Arizona and was surprised to come across the Navajo language radio channel. And then shocked at myself — and the US in general — that I’d never heard that before!)

Such a powerful quote. Thanks, Dyani.

🚨EXHIBITION ALERT🚨Indigenous Identities

If you are in New Jersey in the coming months, there is a major exhibition of Indigenous art right now at the Zimmerli Art Museum. “Indigenous Identities features 97 living artists that represent over 74 Indigenous nations and communities from across North America and includes painting, works on paper, photography, ceramics, beadwork, weaving, sculpture, installation, and video.” Here’s a great review of the show in the online art publication Hyperallergic. I hope to make it out there. If you do, please share your experience with the GUT crew in the chat.

And with that, let’s learn from these indigenous artists above and explore our own heritage a little.

The Assignment: Honoring our Past

A quick note on Honoring vs. Appropriating

Several years ago, I did a piece for the New York Times about the sharp increase in popularity of white sage as the Native practice of smudging became more widely practiced, especially by white people. I was interested in how Native folks felt about it, so I reached out to Adrienne Keene, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, visual artist, and former professor at Brown University, to ask her take. This was her valuable response:

She went onto suggest that people look into their own cultural lineages and find traditions to pull from there.

As I thought about what we’d draw this week, I asked myself: if we are non-native people, how can we be respectful appreciators and take inspiration from indigenous artists, but not appropriate their approach?

I was taken with Wendy Red Star’s idea of “collaborating with your ancestors” and intergenerational collaboration more broadly: Wendy Red Star has collaborated with her daughter on a number of pieces, and Dyani White Hawk also has generations of her family working with her on beading her pieces. What does it meant to collaborate with our own families, present and past?

Here’s where I landed, and an assignment for you to explore that, too:

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Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I’m back home from my trip to NY and have been appreciating all your kind words and your drawings for last week’s assignment/my birthday wish: to talk to strangers, draw, and vote. I’m so moved by your responses to all three. Check out the gallery at the end of this dispatch for a few highlights. Truly, this community is the best 50th birthday gift I could ask for.

Keep the celebration going with a sale!

Now that I’ve hopped the fence into my fifth decade, let’s get back to our regularly scheduled programming: the third and final installment in our Overlooked Art Supplies series. Today’s star:

The Post-it!

Bright, sticky, and ubiquitous, the iconic Post — it is even in the MoMA design collection. And if you’ve ever hung out with a designer, you might have a little Post-it PTSD (raises hand). Personally, I use them to mark up books and map out projects on my walls. We see them daily, at home and at work, but how much do we really know about the humble sticky square?

Maybe, like our fearless editor Candace, your first Post-it history lesson came from Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, when our heroines try to pass themselves off as the inventors of the Post-it. Spoiler alert: it was not Romy nor Michele. (Shocking!) The creator was actually Art Fry of 3M. The rest is pop-culture history.

How The Post-It Was Invented

Art Fry can’t take all the credit, tho. The Post-it’s gentle adhesive was invented by Spencer Silver in 1968 while he was trying to develop a stronger glue. But he thought this weaker adhesive still had potential. He just didn’t know what to do with it.

Later, in 1974, Art Fry was feeling frustrated with his bookmarks falling out of his hymnal during choir practice. He wanted a way to stick his bookmarks to the page without damaging the paper. He thought of Silver’s adhesive and BOOM! The Post-it was born! As employees at 3M started using them, they realized that the Post-it was more than a bookmark. People used them to write reminders and messages. It was a totally new way to communicate. And in 1980, the Post-it was officially introduced to the world.

Fry reflected, “The most surprising thing for me is how Post-it Notes unlock the creativity of so many people. After all, it is just a slip of paper that allows you to communicate with others or store your thoughts. Yet people use them in all sorts of ways.”

Unlock YOUR creativity in community!

Tiny Canvases: The Art of the Post-it

The 2016 #postitwars

In 2016, ad agencies launched a “war” with their neighbors in New York City via Post-it mosaics! It started innocently enough, with a “Hi” on one side, which garnered a “Sup?” from the other, and then it eventually escalated into this:

Of course it ended with a mic drop coordinated over several stories of the building!

Fun inspiration for some artful window dressing at home.

Just a few more days of birthday sale!

Rebecca Murtaugh

Artist Rebecca Murtaugh first started exploring Post-its as an artistic medium in 2001:

“I was really mesmerized by Post-its. They come in all these colors. They are beautiful. They have a purpose, but it’s different for everyone: sometimes it’s a note, ‘I’ll be back,’ or maybe it’s a phone number. But for all these important things, the note itself is always ephemeral and temporary. Yet it’s carrying all this valuable information. So there is this duality: it’s disposable, but it’s very valuable. I wanted to mark an important space, not a book with a note, but an entire room.”

She spent six days covering every surface in her bedroom with Post-its, and then recreated this piece in her living room for the New York Times in 2007.

She has also turned Post-its into vibrant sculptures as part of the same Color-Coded series:

The time to make your art is now!

Matthew “Levee” Chavez: Subway Therapy

After the 2016 election, artist Matthew “Levee” Chavez put up a Post-it in a New York subway station: “Express yourself.” Over time thousands of people responded, creating a massive art installation in an unexpected place.

“I am trying to help people channel the energy that they have into something beautiful,” Levee said about the project. While he wanted to give people space to express their feelings after the election, he noted that it wasn’t partisan: “This isn’t about a filtered view. This is just people writing about how they feel. You should respect what they have to say in hopes that they should respect what you have to say.”

Ed Atkins: Post-it Art as Daily Practice

English artist Ed Atkins mostly works in computer-generated animations and videos. But in 2020, during the pandemic, he turned to Post-its as a convenient canvas for daily drawings that he included in his daughter’s lunchbox. He described them as “a way for me to achieve something every day.”

Afterwards, he saved each one and included them in his recent exhibition at the Tate “to teach a way of looking and accepting and feeling that might be useful for everything else.”

The Post-it Show!

Check it out - it’s AMAZING!!

What happens when you get a bunch of amazing artists to all make art on a Post-it and then feature them all together? This grand collection of Post-it art has happened annually at Giant Robot in Los Angeles — for 20 years! Artists Esther Pearl Watson, Mark Todd, and Giant Robot founder Eric Nakamura had this brilliant idea to bring well established and up and coming artists together in one renegade show of 3x3 canvases, and make art accessible and way less serious than it was in the early 2000s when it began. It’s a huge hit with artists and collectors alike.

It’s super inspiring to see what participating artists do within a 3”x3” square. If you’re in LA, the 21st show opens in a few weeks! Come visit, check out the art, and even purchase a one of a kind tiny canvas.

Alright, now that we’ve had adequate inspiration, it’s your turn….

Ready to start making things?

The Assignment

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I interrupt our regularly scheduled program of overlooked art supplies with an official…

50th Birthday Dispatch from NY.

Yup, I turn 50 tomorrow. At last.

Here’s a little 50th birthday treat for you! For a limited time, you can get 22% off your subscription. Just click this button to access the sale:

A gift for us both!

To celebrate, this double scorpio is predictably scrapping the plan and sharing with you what I’ve been up to the past week: I gave myself a quick trip to NY to look at art and test out the new hip on the city streets. And friends, it was a revelation. A triumph! I’ve said it before/I’ll say it again: Take The Trip.

What follows are glimpses of some drawings and photos of art I saw, and a few notes on the exhibits, a GUT-style sketchbook from the past few days. My big takeaway from the week (and maybe my first 50 years) is that if something doesn’t make me feel something, then it ain’t for me. Life is too short to walk and talk in circles.

My bday wish is our assignment this week, which you’ll find at the bottom of this dispatch: that you, too, grab a sketchbook and go out into the world. Say hi to people you don’t know. Notice small moments, chance compositions, meaningful aesthetic mishaps. Go see some art, and if it strikes you, do some digging to learn more about it. Get off the screens, the internet, the socials. Go be around people. Slow down, look closely, talk to strangers, and draw. ❤️

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Here’s some of the stuff I saw:

The Hotel Lobby

The Frick

The Frick just opened this year after a $220 million, 5-year renovation, and it is jawdropping. Every detail in the Gilded-Age home is beyond considered, and it made me wonder why I haven’t painted on my ceiling yet. But what I loved even more than the incredible collection of Ingres, Rembrandts, even Vermeer, was the contemporary addition to the 360-degree exhibit: the porcelain floral arrangements by artist Vladimir Kanevsky that are placed throughout the museum. Like these wild artichoke flowers and pomegranate branches below. (Yes they are entirely porcelain.) Give yourself a couple hours in the Frick and bring your sketchbook. No photos are allowed.

The Subway

Join me ❤️✏️❤️

The Guggenheim: Rashid Johnson

Rashid Johnson is a conceptual artist just a year or two younger than me. He works in photography, sculpture, installation, video, painting, you name it. I love how he moves from medium to medium to explore and question. The whole museum is filled with his work, including the building’s vertical atrium, where plants hang on cables, frozen in time, falling, flying, circling in space. Also, in the photo below you can see the giant grid of artifacts that constitute a collection of stories and thoughts and feelings in the form of objects, which is kind of like standing in the middle of the artist’s brain and history.

The drawings below are from his photo series titled The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club — Johnson imagined a contemporary men’s society that includes African American historical figures like Marcus Garvey, Thurgood Marshall, and Emmett Till, and photographed himself as these figures, come back to life, staring straight at you.

The Brooklyn Museum: Portraits

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There’s a few great exhibitions at the BK museum, but the one on portraits grabbed me most of all. It pushes you to wonder: who gets represented, who does the representing, and how is it all presented? Three moments that struck me in the show:

1. Sasha Gordon’s self-portrait

She isn’t even 30 yet! Queer, multiracial, amazing jawdropping skill and presentation... Love what she brings to the room. So weird and creepy and smart. Zoom in on the paint!

2. The collection of “seated white people” portraits

As power and perspectives evolve and change, curators and historians (and all of us) grapple with what to do with things like seated portraits that symbolized wealth and power — and now are widely understood to represent past and present oppression. Instead of tossing these portraits out and denying the past, the curators chose to position the portraits low on the wall, offering viewers seats to sit and look at them, eye to eye, and consider what they mean to us today.

3. George Washington next to the fire extinguisher. LOL.

I love the Brooklyn Museum.

I love New York.

And while it’s officially tomorrow, I’m owning it now. And I already love being 50.

We’ve been here in DrawTogether and the Grown-Ups Table for five years. And a helluva five years it’s been. The best of times and the worst of times. And while it’s an especially hard time right now in the United States, I remain staunchly hopeful that we can move in the right direction if we do it together.

Maybe I’ll write a larger reflection in the future, but right now I’m focused on being IN IT. But real quick, cause I believe writing things down wills them into existence, on my 50th I recommit to the work I’ve been doing for, jeez, as long as i can remember: to use art and drawing and making stuff to grow and connect with each other from the inside out. And on my 50th I’m adding a small change, or maybe a return to a time a few years back: to hold it a little more lightly, prioritize the people, and enjoy it all along the way. More talking to strangers. More silliness. More joy.

Onwards.

Love you, DTxGUT

Pencils UP!!

xoxo,

w

50th will be better than ever with you

Assignment: GET CURIOUS WITH ME

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We have a great lesson and assignment for you today, featuring my pal, the phenomemal illustrator Brian Rea!

But first, a short note on healing.

The bionic artist. (A personal update.)

Should you ever need a joint replacement and have the medical care and coverage to take care of it, do it. I’m 8 weeks out from surgery. The recovery was far longer and harder than I expected. It was painful, humbling, frustrating, exhausting… all around rough. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Looking back on the three years leading up the surgery, I can’t believe how I adapted to the constant aching pinch in my hip — how I contorted my life to meet pain’s logistical needs: where I could go, how i would get there, who I could see, what I would do… there was an exhausting, ever present cost/benefit ticker running under every single decision, every single day. Most surprising: I can now see that the pain made it impossible for me to sit long enough to sink into that timeless space of drawing. This messed with my drawing life, my confidence, and my entire sense of self. Sure, I’ve been drawing and writing. If anyone knows that, it’s you, GUT crew. But I’m looking forward to getting lost in the process in a way I haven’t for some time. I am excited to get back out there and draw.

The surgery didn’t rewind time. I am still a 49 year old body (turning 50 in a week!) that needs to stretch and drink more water and pop the occasional Advil. HRT is my BFF. But space where the pain lived before is slowly being filled with an increasing awareness of the connection between my physical self and creative self. I understand the relationship between my body and drawing in a way I never did before. Perhaps that is what it means for an artist to become bionic. And perhaps this is some of that wisdom I’ve heard about that comes with age.

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Alright, speaking of appreciating the often overlooked dimensions of life, let’s get back to our series of OVERLOOKED ART SUPPLIES!

MASKING TAPE - featuring our guest artist, illustrator BRIAN REA

Last week we started part 2 of our overlooked art supplies series and introduced masking tape. We asked you to play around with it and get to know it as a medium. Your explorations were so creative and fun and delightful! Many of you messed around with starter-murals in your own homes, perfectly priming you for this week’s visit from our pro: the incredible illustrator Brian Rea.

You absolutely know Brian’s work. If you’ve ever read (and let’s be honest, cried over) a Modern Love column in the New York Times, you’ve seen his drawings — he has been illustrating that column for the last 15 years and also served as the art director for the paper’s Opinion page.

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His work has been exhibited around the world, and he is the author and illustrator of several books, most recently collaborating with James Robinson on Whale Eyes: A Memoir About Seeing and Being Seen. He is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Art Center College of Design (where I went to school!).

Even though Brian is best known for his drawings and illustration, he is the person I immediately thought of when envisioning a tape part of this series on overlooked art materials. At Art Center, Brian has students collaborate on a giant mural using tape as their medium, and the process and outcome both blew me away. And he has gone on to make a number of eye-catching murals with tape himself, to boot.

Brian generously agreed to chat with us a bit, give us some pointers based on his work with tape, and give us our “drawing with tape” assignment this week. So let’s get into it.

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Q&A with Brian Rea

Wendy: What led you to tape as a medium?

Brian: It was by accident honestly — I had been invited to do a mural workshop with Nicholas Blechman at the old Art Director’s Club in New York. We had a general sketch planned and had ordered paint. However, as I was waiting to board the plane to NYC, we got word that we couldn’t “paint” on the walls. We had to figure out an alternative. I was freaking out — do we draw on the windows, a temporary wall...?

I wasn’t sure, I just stared at the floor in the airport, then I noticed a piece of blue construction tape on the carpet. It reminded me of the Transportation Design students work at Art Center — in the halls, they’d also use blue tape to “draw” and redraw the curves of their car designs on the walls. Maybe this could work. I called Nicholas, we ordered a box of black acid-free tape in varying thicknesses, then went into our mural workshop pretending as if nothing had changed. We had no idea what it would look like in the end.

Wendy: WHOA. That’s amazing. Cool how constraints = opportunities to try new things. What have you found to be the most rewarding and most challenging things about making art with tape?

Brian: The most rewarding part is instant results. Tape can cover an area quite quickly so you get a clear sense of the composition, and scale of things very efficiently while mapping out a piece on a wall. It’s also quite easy to “redraw” any part — tape makes no mistakes, because if something feels off, simply remove and rebuild it.

As far as challenges go, well...making sure you have enough tape.

Wendy: LOL. Makes sense. And tape ain’t cheap! As a professor, you have given your students the project of making large murals with tape. What do your students learn from doing this? What can we learn from your students?

Brian: Students can learn all practical aspects of mural making, but the magical thing is they don’t realize they’re learning. Students aren’t thinking about painting or drawing, so the pressure a student might feel making a mural for the first time is gone. Working with tape somehow removes that anxiety.

Tape is pretty democratic because everyone is using the same tool, the same thickness, same color, it’s a tool with limits and constants. Instead, students spend their time communicating with each other while working- pretty soon they’re collaborating as a team, critiquing and art directing each other.

They discover their strengths and weaknesses as a group; who is good with details, cleaning up areas, who is vocal vs who is quietly documenting the whole process. They learn to create a “system” across the wall, partly while sketching before the mural, but also while mapping the mural out in the “transfer” stage. They learn how to manage large scale projects and that in turn builds a ton of confidence that these projects are possible.

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Wendy: Additionally, in your classes, your tape murals have been a collaborative project among your students. While some GUT members might want to try making tape art with their families at home, some might be on their own. What are some considerations for doing it solo or as a group?

Brian: The most important thing is to have a plan — a sketch. Even a rough one. I always try to use one whether in a group or as an individual. It is possible to freestyle the whole wall however, it may feel a bit casual and may not hold together, especially if it’s a group project.

As a group, it’s also super helpful to discuss the mark making — if the mural has figures, maybe discuss a system for how “features” are drawn (eyes, hair, etc) so the wall has continuity; discuss if the team will use curved lines or all straight lines and angles (again for consistency purposes); discuss the thickness of the tape — should everyone use all the same tape or thinner tape for details, thicker for broad parts. The other thing to consider is the temporary-ness of this material. This is not a permanent material — so it’s not ideal for outdoors or bright sunlit areas and should only be used in areas that have limited foot traffic. And make sure you have all the tools/tape needed when you begin the project — step ladders, enough tape, and give yourself enough time for cleaning up when done.

Wendy: Using tape as an art medium will be new for many people in the GUT. As an artist best known for illustration, how do you relate drawing to working with tape? In other words, how does your work in one medium transfer to a new medium, and vice versa?

Brian: Each medium is different and offers different results — tape can create more graphic results, the marks are more broad and simplified, but hopefully the voice of the work is similar to my other drawings or paintings. Creating tape murals can feel more like building rather than drawing or painting.

Wendy: Thanks so much, Brian. Alright GUT crew, let’s do this!

Ready to start making things?

The Assignment: Create Your Own Tape Mural, with tips from Brian Rea

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Last week, we continued our series on overlooked art materials with a focus on phenomenal Nigerian ballpoint artist Jacqueline Suowari. In our interview with Jacqueline, she spoke about how she came to specialize in ballpoint pens and the empowering stories she shares through her work. The wonderful self-portraits you all created in response to her assignment are phenomenal — take a look at GUT member’s amazing ballpoint self-portraits here. Pens up, indeed.

Today, we move onto our next overlooked art supply. And it is…..

Overlooked Art Supply: MASKING TAPE

Turns out MASKING TAPE isn’t merely a tool for painting or for sticking stuff to other stuff, it can be an art material itself.

In an incredible coincidence, not only is this year the 100th anniversary of the oil pastel, it’s also the 100th anniversary of the invention of masking tape. It’s like the art gods are guiding us… So let’s get to know this material and celebrate this big birthday together!

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The Origin of Masking Tape: The Car?!

In the tape world, the tapes we know best all belong to the category of “pressure sensitive tape” — put a little pressure on the tape, and it sticks to the surface. No need to add water or heat or anything else to activate it. You might be surprised (I was!) to know the first pressure sensitive tape dates all the way back to 1845 when a surgeon Horace Day created one with cloth.

For the invention of masking tape though, you have to wait for Richard Drew. A banjo-playing college dropout in his early twenties, he started working at a local manufacturer Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (better known today as 3M). While bringing samples of their sandpaper around to auto shops in 1923, he heard about their frustrations trying to achieve a two-toned paint job on customers’ cars. They were using all kinds of pastes to stick newspapers on and “mask” up sections to protect the paint while applying the second color. He watched and listened, and realized they needed an adhesive that was strong enough to adhere firmly but gentle enough to be removed without damaging the surface. He believed he could make it. So he returned to his shop and got to work.

After two years of experimentation and much persistence (his bosses told him to stop!), Drew developed masking tape in 1925. He went on to develop Scotch tape and then led 3M’s Products Fabrication Laboratory, contributing to a culture of creativity and innovation. Many people have praised Google for offering employees 20% of their work time to develop their own ideas and projects — but it’s 3M that introduced the “15% Rule”, and Drew’s dedication is credited by many for inspiring this practice.

What exactly IS Masking Tape? And Painter’s Tape? And Artist’s Tape? And Washi Tape?!?

What Drew invented was a tape that combined crepe paper with an adhesive designed to stay tacky. All these tapes essentially combine paper and an adhesive.

From what I can tell, Painter’s Tape is designed with a weaker adhesive than masking tape so it can be removed more easily and without a residue. Artist’s Tape is very similar but can be used on more delicate surfaces and can be acid-free. Washi Tape was invented in the 1990s with Japanese washi paper and is also easily removed. Its popularity mainly stems from its many colors and patterns.

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Masking Tape Artists

Once again, you will not believe what people have done with this everyday material!

Flekz

Gustavo Fuentes, who goes by Flekz, is a Salvadoran-born first-generation artist based in LA. He got into making art with tape when he saw how tape could replace the stencils he was using, and now he sometimes uses tape as a tool for painting but often tape serves as the art itself. Get this, HE DOES NOT MEASURE — he works freehand! He creates his own guide lines with… more tape!

Darel Carey

Another tape artist based in LA is Darel Carey. His work is more organic, and he describes himself as influenced by MC Escher’s illusions, Sol LeWitt’s lines, Bridget Riley’s Op Art, and Carl Krull’s “seismic” style. You can his process in this video:

Born in Curaçao, Carey is half-Filipino and half-Irish. He grew up in Southern California and went into the Air Force. He attended Otis College of Art and Design and in his final year, he began experimenting with tape. In an interview with CanvasRebel, he reflected on his art:

Art is something different for everyone. … Some art appeals to emotion, and people are drawn to it because of how it makes them feel. My art appeals to wonder. At least that’s what I try to convey. I want to induce thought. Seeing lines on a wall banding together to create seemingly three-dimensional forms on flat surfaces makes one wonder how that is. It’s an illusion. It’s complex, but from a simple, organic process. It taps into how we perceive the world, and how things aren’t always what they seem.

TapeOver Berlin — co-founder, LaMia Michna

Berlin is home to an incredible range of tape artists. Many of them have found community through groups such as TapeOver, a collective co-founded by LaMia who goes by her first name. Like Carey, she found tape art as a student by using it for something else and discovering its versatility.

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Tape Art by ATAU — Atau Hámos and Toni Prediger

Also based in Berlin, Atau Hámos and Toni Prediger work together on incredible vibrant installations. Hámos was formerly part of another prominent Berlin artist collective, Tape That, before striking off on his own and collaborating with Prediger. They have also led workshops to bring out others’ creativity and share about techniques of using tape for art.

Feeling inspired? Can you imagine artworks like these in your home?! Here’s how we’ll begin…

The Assignment: Playing Around with Wall Tape!

Let’s have some fun exploring this medium! We’re going to do this week’s assignment in three steps, so grab some masking tape and clear some wall space. This is going to be fun…

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Last week we launched our mini-series on overlooked, under-appreciated art mediums. First up: the omnipresent ballpoint pen. We explored how artists approach the medium differently, and practiced the basics of line and value using the sticky, surprisingly controllable ink.

This week we take a deeper dive into the medium with a focus on one particular artist who is THE QUEEN of ballpoint: Jacqueline Suowari.

But first! ANNOUNCEMENT for GUT members: Winner of Tucker Nichols’s new book Mostly Everything is Mary Holscher. Email your mailing info to community@drawtogether.studio to receive your copy, you lucky duck. Want to participate in drawing/art contests/art supply giveaways in the future? Join us….

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And now, onto the show.

All Hail the Ballpoint Queen: Jacqueline Suowari

Jacqueline Suowari is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist who makes incredible, large-scale portraits using ballpoint pens. She started drawing at age 5, and she knew she wanted to be an artist. However, when she entered her university’s fine art program, they taught her that drawing was supposed to be “a means to something,” like a step to do before sculpting or painting. There was only one drawing course! Since drawing wasn’t an option, she specialized in painting. After finishing school, she realized she wasn’t happy and it was her art — she realized she wasn’t doing what she really loved, and that was drawing!1

She has since specialized in working with ballpoint pens on monumental drawings though she continues to engage in film, sculpture, and other mediums. She has shown her work in major cities around the world, including a recent solo exhibition in Paris that went on to London. What we especially love here at the GUT is her dedication to mentoring young artists and creatives through The Passion for Art Initiative, a platform she founded in 2011. In March 2025, she was honored with the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) award for activism and humanitarian work. No big deal. ;)

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Jacqueline generously chatted with us about her experience with ballpoint, her artwork in general, and her process. I love this interview and think you will, too.

Q&A with Jacqueline Suowari

Wendy: How did you find your way to ballpoint pen as a medium?

Jacqueline: It started quite naturally. As a student, ballpoint pens were always within reach, so I began experimenting with them out of curiosity. Like most children, I doodled and sketched at the back of my notebooks. Over time, I became fascinated by how something so ordinary, an everyday writing tool could create such depth and emotion when layered and manipulated. I originally trained in art. What began as exploration turned into a lifelong dialogue between patience, texture, and line.

Wendy: What does ballpoint as a medium mean to you? What are its opportunities and challenges?

Jacqueline: For me, the ballpoint pen symbolizes accessibility and discipline. It’s a tool used by everyone, yet capable of extraordinary sophistication. Its permanence means there’s little or no room for error; each stroke is an act of faith and intention. The challenge lies in control and layering, building tonal depth without blotting the surface. But the reward is a richness and luminosity and contrast that feels alive.

Wendy: Do you have a favorite type of ballpoint you like to use, and why?

Jacqueline: Yes, I work primarily with BIC pens because of their consistent ink flow, tonal range and gloss effect. They allow me to layer gradually, almost like shading with graphite, while maintaining precision. I have also begun to explore Copic multiliner pens and Sakura Pigma Micron pens; they have a unique mark-making quality that allows for finer control and variation in line weight, enabling me to build texture and tone in ways that feel both delicate and deliberate.

There’s something poetic about using such a simple, globally recognizable tool to create monumental works of art.

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Wendy: Have you always worked at such a large scale, and how does it impact your decisions?

Jacqueline: I’ve always been drawn to scale because it gives my figures a commanding presence and changes how people encounter the work. Large formats invite viewers to step closer; to be completely immersed in the rhythm and emotion of each line. For me, scale isn’t just aesthetic; it’s a statement about visibility, especially for the women and subjects I depict. Their stories deserve space.

When I started, people often told me that no collector would have room for such large works especially within the Nigerian Market. I chose not to let those limitations define my practice and instead followed my vision. I kept pushing the boundaries of size and detail. With time, I quickly realized that collectors had begun to make spaces with the scale of my work in mind. Today, some of my pieces span up to 10 feet wide, made from millions of pen strokes, and stand among the largest figurative ballpoint pen drawings in the world. Scale has become my language, it demands attention, honors my subjects, and creates an intimacy that smaller works simply can’t achieve.

Wendy: Your work is incredibly labor-intensive and detail oriented. How long does one drawing take, and do you have anything playing in the background while you work?

Jacqueline: A single drawing can take anywhere from three weeks to three months, depending on its size and complexity. I often listen to a variety of things; poetry, podcasts, YouTube videos on themes that fascinate me and different genres of music. My choices are usually determined by my state of mind when I walk into my studio. It’s important to have something that allows my mind to travel while my hand remains disciplined. Sometimes I work in silence; the repetitive motion becomes an almost meditative, soothing sound.

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Wendy: You’ve mentioned wanting your art to be remembered for its message. What do you hope viewers will notice and take away from your work?

Jacqueline: I want viewers to see more than technique or skill in my work. I hope they feel presence, impact, and transformation. My practice is rooted in themes of identity, resilience, and the quiet strength of the human spirit, especially through the lens of womanhood. I want people to leave reflecting on empathy, on our shared humanity, and on the beauty hidden in the overlooked details of life.

At its core, my work is a celebration of Nigerian fashion and the profound language of hair; both vessels of identity and expression. In my culture, neither fashion nor hair is superficial; they are powerful statements of being. The fabrics we choose, the textures we embrace, the braids we weave each carry history, memory, and emotion.

Hair, in particular, is a vital sub-theme in my practice. It is more than adornment; it is a living archive of identity and resistance. Intricate braids reflect communal care, while sculptural styles assert individuality. For me, hair is where art, culture, and history meet. It tells stories of lineage and belonging, creativity and survival.

By merging fashion and hair in my portraits, I aim to reframe the aesthetics of African femininity; showing that beauty, in our context, is not passive. It is participatory, a way to narrate our place in the world. Each strand of hair, each fold of fabric becomes a metaphor for resilience and transformation.

Ultimately, I want people to see that fashion and hair are languages of power; tools through which women continually define themselves, challenge stereotypes, and honor the sacred artistry embedded in everyday life.

Wendy: Before we wrap up, is there a ballpoint tip or technique you’d like to share with our Grown-Ups Table artists?

Jacqueline: Absolutely! Earlier, I mentioned how my layering technique is a metaphor for life; each stroke representing the experiences that shape us. Now, when it comes to technique, hatching is key.

Hatching is the process of drawing parallel lines close together to create depth and texture. You start with light, even strokes, and gradually build them up. By varying the pressure and direction, you can achieve darker areas and subtle transitions. Cross-hatching adds another layer by intersecting lines at different angles, giving even richer tonal variation.

Patience is everything. Layer each hatch thoughtfully, and let the forms emerge. That’s where the magic happens.

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Thank you so much for joining us, Jacqueline! If you want to check out more, head to her Instagram. She has been sharing about her most recent body of work, “Hair With Me,” a miniature collection that explores hair as a vessel of identity, memory, and shared humanity.

Jacqueline has also developed a special assignment for you all, building on the techniques we used last week and drawing on her body of work.

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So happy you’re here.

Last week we talked with artist Tucker Nichols about noticing, unexpected aesthetics, and discovering art materials (and art!) in the most unlikely places.

Close looking and paying attention are core tenets of the DrawTogether ethos. Which, to be transparent, is another way of saying my ethos. I thought it would be a good idea to continue down this noticing/creativity/unexpected art supply path we kicked off with Tucker. He told us a story about finding an art medium in a livestock supply store. That made me wonder: what other unexpected art materials are hiding in plain sight? What overlooked art supplies are floating around our homes, waiting to be unleashed on the paper, canvas, or wall?? I’ll tell you friends: A LOT.

This week we kick off a series we’re calling….

Overlooked Art Supplies: The Series

In this series, we’re going to look at THREE ordinary materials that can be used as extraordinary art supplies. We are going to teach you a bit about an overlooked art supply — how it works, what other artists have done with it, and give you a primer on how to use it. Then we’ll speak with an artist who uses it as a primary medium, and get inspiration to make our own work using the medium. Sound good?

Great. Let’s do this. The first one is the ubiquitous mark maker…

Part 1: The Ballpoint Pen

Love them or hate them, I know you have a few hiding in your home, office, backpack, car, everywhere. If you’re like me, you often “unintentionally” pocket them at restaurants and doctors offices, only to toss them into a junk drawer back home. So rude. To the pen and the purveyor. And also a serious missed opportunity. While most of us associate ballpoints with the administration of daily life or branded corporate giveaways, I have news for you: this humble mark maker is capable of so much more.

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What exactly is a ballpoint pen?

I’ve developed a renewed appreciation for the ballpoint as artists have shown what you can really do with it. And the pen itself is a noteworthy design — the Bic Cristal is even in the collection of the MoMA!1

The modern ballpoint pen works by incorporating three key innovations:

1. a tiny ball bearing inside the pen’s tip — it rotates as you draw the pen across the paper

2. a viscous quick-drying ink which gets pulled by the rotating ball from the cartridge to the paper — even though they’re called ballpoint pens, it’s really the ink that was the critical development to making them work well!

3. plastic parts which could be produced more cheaply than those of previous metal pens and made the ballpoint affordable to the masses. (This part of the pen’s design is perhaps too successful as the United Nations estimates 9 billion plastic pens are thrown away every year.)

Masters of the Ballpoint Pen

One great thing about the ballpoint is how receptive it is to pressure. Unlike a rollerball pen like the Uniball Visions I tend to favor when drawing, ballpoints can create different values — light and dark — depending on how much pressure you exert. And because of that, you can layer colors, like blending red into blue. In that way, it’s more like a pencil than most pens.

Once you start playing around with them, you’ll be surprised to see how delicate a line you can get, and what detailed work you can create. Don’t take my word for it, tho. Let’s take a look at a few artists who create jaw-dropping representational and abstract artwork using just the humble ballpoint pen.

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Nicolas V. Sanchez

Nicholas V. Sanchez started sketching in ballpoint on his subway commute and then began incorporating ballpoint more into his studio practice. He says, “The inability to erase… is both the beauty and challenge of drawing in ink.” I’ve featured him before in my lesson on sketchbooks. Prepare to pop your eyes back into your head!

Guno Park

Guno Park also finds drawing inspiration on the New York subways, but he is probably best known for his drawings of animals (and in fact has been an instructor for animal drawing at New York Academy of Art for over a decade).

Here’s a time-lapse of Guno Park drawing an ape:

Elke Kunneman

Although she works with ballpoint pens, Elke Kunneman describes her work as being driven by her interest in light and time. As she layers ink on the page with scribbles and signatures, she says, “The light arises naturally. … I really enjoy discovering that context is necessary to see light. If you look purely at light and you don’t have context, you probably won’t see light.” The contrast between the ink and the paper make the emptier spaces seem to glow. So cool!

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Il Lee

Il Lee is one of the best-known artists to use ballpoint as the basis for his art. While attending the Pratt Institute for graduate school, he focused on printmaking and etching. His interest in the sharp line created by a needle transitioned over to his ballpoint works.

In an interview, he laughed as he recalled a critic saying something like, “You know, that Il Lee, he’s a Korean artist in New York – Jackson Pollock was a fighter with paint and a bucket – and Il fights with his thin ballpoint pen!”

Carine Brancowitz

Carine Brancowitz takes a more illustrative approach to her ballpoint drawing. While she does not work exclusively in ballpoint, the pen is central to her work. What I love is how she manages to combine such clean lines with incredible textures.

Emil Ferris

Emil Ferris wrote and illustrated an entire graphic novel titled My Favorite Thing Is Monsters with mainly ballpoint pens! The main character in her novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a young girl who believes she is a werewolf and is trying to solve the murder of her upstairs neighbor. The novel appears as her sketchbook and diary and all the illustrations take place on notebook paper.

She has received wide acclaim both for her storytelling and her intricate drawings, and her personal story is just as compelling. In 2002, she found herself paralyzed after contracting the West Nile Virus, and as an artist, she was devastated to find this also affected her drawing hand. However, she was determined to regain her mobility — she worked with her daughter to duct tape a quill pen to her hand to make her first illustration after being hospitalized and slowly began to recover her drawing abilities despite chronic pain.

All hail the humble ballpoint pen.

Now that we’ve seen what can be done with it, let’s learn a little about how to draw with it ourselves.

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Ballpoint Pen Basics

In some ways, the ballpoint pen is more like a pencil than other pens are: you can control the amount of ink that comes out of the pen with pressure. Less pressure = lighter line. More pressure = darker line.

You can also build value by layering, like we do with other pens. Remember this lesson on building value with graphite pencils?

We can apply it to the ballpoint pen, too. You can layer marks to build value, including hatch marks (in any direction, parallel, cross, or contour, stippling (dots) and scumbling (scribbling). Smudging? Not so much, but hey, give it a try and report back!

If you want to learn by watching, check out this phenomenal introduction to all this from Guno Park over on the Artists’ Network.

Also, COLOR. Using the techniques above, you can layer colors to create a blended effect. (See Nicolas’s work above!)

And that, my friends, is your intro to what the humble ballpoint pen can do. Now it’s OUR TURN to try.

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Assignment

I have a hunch you know what this week’s assignment might be. There’s really only one way to learn to do something new, and that’s…

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Hellooooo DrawTogether GUT crew, old and new.

I’m delighted to report that I’m writing to you from my studio!

After four weeks of near-zilch mobility, I’m slowly regaining my strength and starting to feel the itch to get back out into the world. To “put on my art eyes” as we say in DrawTogether videos. To see all the weird, wonderful, magical moments occurring around us all the time. Not being able to walk without pain for nearly 3 years contracted my art practice. It wasn’t bad. I’m grateful for all the lessons I’ve learned from my kitchen table. But I am also over it. I miss the world, talking to strangers, paying attention. Looking through drawing. I’m ready to get out there and LOOK again. I can’t wait to see what — and who — is out there today.

On that note, this week I was thrilled to spend some time chatting with one of my favorite artists: Tucker Nichols. Tucker is a prolific artist who works in every medium imaginable (pencil! paint! wire! earplugs! thumbtacks!) to create drawings, paintings, sculptures, illustrations, you name it. I’ve shared his work with you before — specifically his generous project “Flowers for…” when Tucker started painting flowers and sending them to people during the pandemic as a way of connecting through illness and hard times. I love everything about his work, his eye, his heart. And his humor.

I wanted to point us back to Tucker’s work this week for two reasons:

1. He uses oil pastels. I thought it would be cool to see how someone uses this medium in a very fun, lighthearted way AFTER last week’s oil pastel lesson.

2. Noticing is on my mind. Tucker is one of my favorite noticers. His keen eye for unexpected aesthetic delight is on full display in his new book Mostly Everything. I love this book so much I wanted an excuse to spend some time with it, and share it with you. So I called him up…

Tucker and I had a lovely chat about unexpected art materials and oil pastels and looking and noticing. Below are some highlights of our chat, some images to inspire, and an assignment to help fire up our noticing muscles. I’m sure you’ll find it as interesting and inspiring as I did, and I can’t wait to see what you find, and share.

The chat is where it's at! Join us!

Without further ado, here’s Tucker (part two!)

Tucker Nichols on Oil Pastels & Farm Animal “Paintstiks”

Tucker and I covered a lot of ground, but we started off talking oil pastels. When I mentioned the use of the medium in art therapy (and research to back it up), he wasn’t surprised. Tucker compared his own experience drawing with oil pastels to finger painting, describing the feeling of pulling the stick across the surface as “[cutting] deeper into the sternum” than other mediums. He said, “Oil pastels say something you can’t describe. The expression moves more through the body, and less through the brain.” (Yes, exactly!)

Even though he says there are a thousand reasons not to use them — they’re messy, not practical, stick together, etc — he still loves to use oil pastels in his paintings, often layering them over other media.

Tucker also introduced me to something I had never heard of: livestock markers. While at a residency in Wyoming 20 years ago, he visited a store with supplies for roping cattle and found these All Weather Paintstik Livestock Markers. They come in five vibrant colors: blue, green, orange, red, yellow. People use them to mark animal skin, fur, and feathers, and the mark will last through all kinds of weather. (Please always ask permission before drawing on animals!)

It’s a good reminder that anything can be an art medium: house paint, duct tape, red wine, you name it. If it makes a mark, it makes art.

Membership is also art.

Here are some inspiring oil-pastel inclusive drawings by Tucker. They make me smile.

Tucker’s Noticing Practice

I love (LOVE!) that Tucker wanders into a cattle roping supply store and sees untapped potential for art-making. It’s a perfect example of one thing that makes Tucker the artist that he is: he notices things. He looks closely at the world and sees things that others don’t, and uses them to make art. He pays attention. And then shares what he sees. Reminds me of this wonderful snippet of a Mary Oliver poem:

Tucker’s attention is on full display in his amazing new book from McSweeney’s, Mostly Everything: The Art of Tucker Nichols, which came out this summer.

Unlike most other monographs, this one includes no text, no captions, no essays in this book. When I asked him why, he said, “Why include a bunch of essays nobody is going to read?” Funny. Sad. Probably true. (Side note: for the new art-people joining us, a monograph is a book that presents a survey of the work of one artist.)

Tucker worked on this book for two years with McSweeney’s incredible art director Sunra Thompson. The book is an art piece itself, organized into sections like “Diagrams” and “Creatures,” similar to the piles he showed us in a tour of his studio back when he was a guest artist.

My favorite works of Tucker’s remind us of the value of paying attention to the beauty around us. Yes to flowers of all kinds and for all sorts of people. His sculptures feature found objects, objects most people would overlook. He makes compositions that get us to look at these objects in new ways. Sometimes his work is silly or absurd. Thank goodness for art that makes us smile. But more, looking at his work sparks my brain to reconsider what is beautiful, and why. To make meaning of the everyday. He urges us to look again at an earplug or jar lid and imagine it anew. What a few earplugs can do!

When I asked him how he keeps his eyes sharp, he said by using them. As I’ve said before, the more you look, the more you’ll see.

Tucker’s work never fails to inspire us to “put on my art eyes”. Not just for the universally-acclaimed, empirically proven “beauty”, but for the things that reward our attention with surprise, wonder, and awe.

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Assignment & Book Giveaway: UNEXPECTED AESTHETICS.

This week one lucky GUT member who shares their artwork in the GUT group chat will win a copy of Tucker’s new book, Mostly Everything. Thank you, McSweeney’s!

When I asked Tucker what he does to notice the world around him, he said he keeps his eyes sharp by looking. Walking around is like a treasure hunt where you can discover “accidental aesthetic choices” — when people have made decisions that are aesthetic but did not consider the aesthetics. For example, you could notice different color wires coming out of a wall, or people painting back over graffiti with colors that are almost right. “The aesthetics aren’t the purpose, but they end up being a result. … I look, and see those choices.”

It takes practice to develop that openness and attention. This week, I want you to go look, really look, and draw what you see. This week we’re doing a LOOKING treasure hunt, with categories inspired by Tucker’s work. Here’s how it works:

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