Let’s face it, anything that is worth doing takes practice. If you want to learn how to play a guitar, as I did in my teen years, it takes hours and hours of practice. The more you practice, the better you get. It’s as simple as that.

During those years, I became a folk song fanatic. I loved all the usual stars of the 1960s. Dylan was probably my favorite as his “protest” songs cut to my core. I learned that there were only a handful of chords in most folk songs: C, D, G, F, and A. If I could get those down, I could do a pretty good job of being an amateur folk singer. After years of practice I think I was a passable one.

Another thing that helped during those years was to have a mentor. Don was that guy. He knew way more songs than I did and was so much more adept at the finger frets. Sadly, he was killed in Vietnam soon as he was sent there. That was the first time death would hit me at a personal level. Of course, it would not be the last.

How does this relate to the post at hand? It doesn’t, but Don flashed in my mind when Liron Yanconsky (author of the book) told me to practice, always. (I’m going to call him Liron throughout this series).

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE…

Liron mentioned that even when we don’t know what we are doing, it is still important to practice. Skills will come later. Don’t be ashamed to make the attempt. Everyone has to start out somewhere. I was kind of ashamed to show you my first attempt of the Dali Museum coffee mug. It was pretty crude.

Liron suggests that I keep a sketchbook handy wherever you go and try to sketch things that interest me. But I think I can do the same thing with the 20,000+ photos I have taken over the years. I wouldn’t have taken the picture if they didn’t interest me. So, I will likely use them for practice, at least to start off. Another important lesson was

Trust your ability to improve and improvement will come.

Too many of us get discourage right out the gate and just give up. But, since I have made my attempt at sketching public knowledge here on RJsCorner I can’t do that. Losing face with all my neighbors who read my daily words would just hurt too much.😎

I am going to put a sketching at the end of each post. I am also installing a 3′ x 4′ magnetic whiteboard in my artsy fartsy area where each sketch will be posted along with the date. That way I can look at them and hopefully see progress as the weeks and months come and go.

Next week we will start putting pencil-to-paper in the beginner mode. 🥸 Meanwhile why don’t we work on hand drawing circles.