Category: Creativity

No more boring drawings!

Many drawing tutorials show us how to draw things. Why are these drawings so boring?

The Creative Playground

How do I even begin my drawing? The secret to jumpstart our creativity is fun. But how does that work?

How to see beauty

Last summer, I found myself at a farmers market of a small town in Southern France. The air was alive with chatter and the joy of yet another sunny day ahead. I made my way through tourists, neighbourhood regulars and other early birds. To escape the buzz, I stepped into the nearby cathedral. 

The perfect drawing tool

The emotional rollercoaster I experience in art supply stores can be summarised in one word: greed. 

How to draw ideas

Great ideas are hard to find. Drawing makes it a lot easier. And fun. How?

The Creative Switch

This secret to creativity will help you come up with many ideas.

What is a picture?

This article gives a phenomenological definition of what a picture is.

So… this is a job?

What is Design?
Designers share a problem with politicians and business consultants: nobody knows what they are actually doing. I can shed some light on what designers do: They shape our daily environment. 

5 more drawing exercises

on the difference between seeing and knowing The following exercises are a bit more advanced than the ones in the “Quick beginner’s guide to drawing”, and I hope you find them equally fun!

Seeing vs. reading

An ancient feud rages at the very core of your creative endeavour: The rational logical you and its fuzzy intuitive rival are in constant dispute.

A quick beginner’s guide to drawing

6 drawing exercises to get you started right now! The basic craft of drawing is about two things: you learn to control your hand and to see.

Don’t change the subject

Many creatives know this phenomenon: They start a new project on a promising topic with excitement, but when they can’t come up with an original idea instantly — they lose interest. They come to the conclusion that they picked the wrong topic. So they restart with a new topic, only to find out that the […]

But what do you want to say?

There is this forbidden question which many people would love to ask when confronted with a piece of art. And it goes something like this: “What does the artist want to say with this piece of art?”

“Is it good enough?” is the wrong question

Ask: “Does it need to be done?” Almost any creative person I know has to deal with heavy doubts in their process. And to a certain extent this might be an unavoidable part of our artistic lives. But I might at least pull one painful thorn out of your side: The question of whether your […]

Is Perfection Boring?

We are obsessive problem solvers. When we see something imperfect, our perception wants to figure out what is going on — we get curious. On the other hand, when something is too irregular or “crappy” we ignore it as irrelevant noise.

Don’t think big!

Pick a small topic for your creative project! One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your creative project is to pick a topic which is too big. As an artist and designer I keep making one mistake time and again. So if this article sounds like me giving advice to other creatives… it […]