When I was at the peak of my advertising career, I was fired. It turned out to be a gift. The job I’d been dismissed from was enormously stressful and involved several dysfunctional and borderline personalities. But I was too bedazzled by my title — Chief Creative Officer — to quit when I should have. I spent the next few months thinking about the lessons I’d learned and what I should do next. I decided to travel around the country to talk to artists and start writing a new book. A book about...
6 days ago • 2 min read
It seems like at this time of year, every website and newsletter is offering advice (and affiliate links 😉). So I thought I should do the same, but with a twist. Here’s a list of meaningful gifts to inspire generosity, connection, and creativity—all without opening your wallet! Regift it: Go through your unused art supplies and pick out a few to pass on. Write a short note on why you like these materials or, if you never used them, what you intended with these materials and how the user might...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader: I have really enjoyed sharing my sketchbooks with you every month. Every time I take a rumpled sketchbook off the shelf, it’s like meeting up with an old friend. Once again, I have experienced how recording words and pictures in a sketchbook journal creates a time capsule that can take me back whenever I turn the page. The moment floods back to me—not just the images, but the sounds, smells, flavors, and feelings, too, still fresh and zesty. I read recently that three weeks after...
16 days ago • 3 min read
While my wife was still unconscious from the anesthetic, I pulled out my sketchbook and drew her in her hospital bed. I noticed every detail of her face, her lips, the way her nose curved, and a twist of her hair over her ear. My anxiety over her recovery washed away in a wave of love for this beautiful woman lying so still. A month later. The CEO was monopolizing the call, faceless. Resentful and bored, I inched open my sketchbook and began to draw the speaker box on the conference table...
20 days ago • 2 min read
One sketchbook — or many? NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: After 152 issues, Studio Notebook will cease publication at the end of this year. Danny's Essays, my free newsletter, will continue each week. You will no longer be charged for your subscription, but I shall continue to send out Studio Notebooks till the end of December. I will fill you in further on this decision in the remaining issues. Thank you so much for being a paid subscriber — your support has meant so much to me! Hi Reader: I used to be...
23 days ago • 3 min read
The turkey's been gobbled, the pie plates licked clean, and I'm sitting here in my post-feast tryptophane glow, thinking about gratitude. You know how sometimes the universe hands you exactly what you need, even when you didn't know you needed it? That's been my 2024. Let me share my gratitude list with you. First, there's the big stuff — the treasures that make life worth living. My wife, the wisest and most beautiful person I know. My family, who make me proud. Our pugs, who make me laugh...
27 days ago • 3 min read
I love reading and sharing books. Here is my "short-list" of favorites so far from 2024. Arranged in random order. Non-fiction Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See by Bianca Bosker A fascinating journey into the world of artists and collectors that reveals how learning to see art can transform the way we view life. It’s an exploration of creativity, obsession, and the beauty found in unconventional perspectives....
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
I did a drawing this morning, and, honestly, it was pretty much the same drawing I did in the margin of my tenth-grade Latin notebook in 1977. A cartoon of a dude with a bald head, big nose, baggy eyes. No, not a selfie. I’ve been teaching art for more than ten years, writing online for more than twenty years, drawing for almost thirty years, and making a living using my creative abilities for more than forty. But just now, a thought flashed through my head: “Am I actually any good at this?”...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader: One of my favorite graphic novelists is Ben Katchor, whose work smells faintly of mildew, corned beef, body odor, and industrial lubricants. He tells odd, meandering stories of a bygone era, a world of shoehorn salesmen and cardboard valises, peeling hallways, and faded ambitions. It’s a familiar world but long gone, possibly the early 1950s, probably New York. It’s so evocative and odd, and ultimately, it leaves me feeling washed out and bleak but also inspired. Paul Auster and...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read