Daily practice

The modules teach skills. These habits keep them. They start at different points in the course and never stop.

Ten minutes a day

From Module 0. A small sketchbook, any subject, from life, with a timer. Stop when it goes. This is the standard Shari Blaukopf set herself when she came back to drawing, and it’s what keeps everything else moving.

Warm-ups

From Module 1, before any longer session.

• A few minutes of ghosted lines, from the shoulder.
• Five one-minute gestures: a scribbled drawing of the whole action of a subject (a person walking, a dog settling, a hen pecking, a tree bending in wind). Draw the movement, not the outline. Kimon Nicolaides paired gesture with contour from his first lesson, and it’s what makes animals possible in Module 12.
• Optional, from Module 4: one of Ruskin’s even-tone squares.

Memory drawing

From Module 1, a few times a week. After a walk, draw one thing you saw from memory: a gate, a stork’s nest, a doorway. Next time you pass it, look at it properly and notice what you got wrong. Nicolaides prescribed this daily, and it trains you to look with intent.

Location sessions

From Module 3, at least once a week. Take the small kit out into the village or the fields and draw for 30–60 minutes. Use whatever the current module is teaching. When you’re in the UK, join one Urban Sketchers meet-up per stay (see resources).

Monthly baseline redraw

From Module 0, once a month. Redraw your four baseline subjects at the same size and for the same time as the originals. Photograph them, put them next to the originals, and fill in a row of the baseline log.

A page for fun

Every week. One page with no rules and no module: copy a painting you love, draw a cartoon, play with colour. This page is part of the course, not a break from it. Keeping drawing enjoyable is what makes 150 hours possible.

Sketchbook review

Every 20 pages or so. Pick your best three and worst three pages. Name one mistake that keeps coming up, and make it your focus for the next 20 pages.