Danny's Essays

by Danny Gregory

Need some help on your creative journey? Each week, I send advice, ideas, and tips to 20,000 creative people like you. Author of 12 best-selling books on creativity.

🛬 Vols. 5 & 6: Part 1

After six months of my drawing, I’d filled four sketchbooks. I’d acquired a solid habit, and my sketchbook was my constant companion. It sat by my side as I ate dinner, watched TV, and hung out with my family. It went with me to work, on business trips, on the subway, and around the neighborhood....

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about 11 hours ago • 4 min read

✋5 things I've learned about drawing.

I've been teaching myself to draw for 25 years. Here's what I've learned matters most. Consistency: Turn your drawing into a habit. Carry a sketchbook in your bag, park one by your bed or your favorite chair, in your car, next to the coffeemaker, anywhere that will function as a reminder. Try to...

4 days ago • 2 min read

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🦐 Vol 4. Thinking small.

What is the best size for a sketchbook? It's something I've reexamined countless times over the years. Several of the sketchbooks I bound in my first year were all 7 inches wide and 11 tall. That's because I was using ledger bond pads that were 11x14, and I would fold them in half and then bind...

7 days ago • 3 min read

🇸🇪 Ready for Swedish Death Cleaning?

We just came upon a new TV show called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. Terrifying name, I know, but it got me thinking about something that might be on your mind too. The idea of the show is that, in Sweden, people prepare for their deaths by editing down their possessions so their...

13 days ago • 4 min read

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Vol 3: Getting serious

I was getting fancier as I embarked on my third sketchbook. I hand-bound it again, but this time I use better paper, ledger bond. I also embossed gold letters on the cover. Like I said, fancy. Spending several weeks drawing with d.price definitely had a profound effect on my sketchbook. I was ...

14 days ago • 5 min read

🤷🏼‍♂️ Is this creative?

My son Jack is one of the most creative people I know. But like all of us, he wrestles with monkeys and demons. I asked him if he'd like to write an essay about how his creative life. Here's what he wrote: There are days when I wake up and roll out of bed. I get dressed in the dark so I don’t...

18 days ago • 4 min read

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🗡️ Vol 2. Crime and mayhem

Back in the day — the late 1900s — it was nigh impossible to find a decent sketchbook. You had one basic choice: the standard black book with a bumpy cover and awful paper. So I went back to the bindery and made myself a second volume with a basic book cloth cover. I was still learning the craft...

21 days ago • 4 min read

💎 How to be a diamond

What if you aren't just good at one thing? What if you are a great musician and a dancer and a singer and a painter and a baker and a mathematician and a tennis player? Oddly, that can be a handicap. The world insists you choose one of those options. They tell you no one is looking for a...

25 days ago • 1 min read

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🍼 Vol 1. The Summer of 1997

In June of 1997, I was desperate for a creative outlet, something to give my recently fractured life some meaning. I was taking my first bookbinding class. And I’d also started to draw various things around my house. My medicine cabinet, a shoe, a picture in a magazine, anything that struck my...

28 days ago • 3 min read

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🔙 Command Z

9 years ago, I wrote the following in my journal. It is still true today. Day before yesterday, I was working on a painting. A proper easel painting of a still life, as if I was Paul Cezanne or Wayne Thiebaud or someone. It was quite idyllic, a mild breeze coming in the studio door, hounds...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

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