DrawTogether with WendyMac

Hellloooo! It’s another DrawTogether Podcast episode.

Subscribers received a special letter yesterday: notes from a conversation with Ruth Asawa’s son, Paul Lanier, about cultivating creativity in young humans. If you’d like to get special treats like this that dig deeper into things we explore in the podcast, please subscribe. You’re also helping DrawTogether continue to make fun, educational, creative stuff for kids of all ages. Thank you.

On to the podcast! This week we answer that age old question: How do you figure out what to draw when you don’t know what to draw?? Turns out, the answer is right in front of you. When you look closely, the most ordinary object becomes extraordinary (and makes an extra-extra ordinary drawing.)

We practice our skills of observation by learning how to do a blind contour drawing (aka drawing without looking at your paper.) This practice helps us look closely and pay attention to the shapes and edges of an object, how it twists and turns. Then we do a little coloring and shading to help us notice texture and light. 3 months of art school into an 8 minute podcast! Hit the play button above or LISTEN ON iTUNES.

Thanks for drawing together, y'all! Post your blind contour drawings of your extraordinary objects on instagram and tag @DrawTogether.Studio to share them out.

Pencils up ,friends! See you next week.

xo, w

DT PODCAST CREDITS: Drawer: WendyMac, Editor: Amy Standen, Drawing Music: Cheeky CP, DT Theme Music: Thao Nguyen, Hold Music: Jay You

PS! DrawTogether got some BIG LOVE in New York Magazine this week! Thank you Liz Weil who wrote an amazing profile, and Damien Maloney who took the funnest photos. A reminder: even though it’s my silly face in the profile, there’s a whole group of kind, creative, hard-working folks who make DrawTogether happen. It’s not called DrawAlone, right?? Big love and shout out to everyone who contributes to DT. <3

Happy new year, friends.

Despite being a stressful time with the uncertainties around Covid, so many people getting sick, the constant calculations we’re doing to keep ourselves and others safe, and the roller coaster with schools, I’m still planting a flag in the ground that reads: there is so much to be grateful for, and so much to feel hopeful about. That includes this wonderful DrawTogether family. You know what you all did?? You raised over 70k to send 2,000 DT kids vital art supplies. YOU DID THAT. You know what else you did? You opened this email, and we are going to DrawTogether right now. YES WE ARE.

Why? Because in the middle of mayhem inside and/or out, we can always find a some peace and a moment of calm using just a piece of paper and a pencil.

Today’s podcast is a short and sweet drawing exercise based on neurologist Dr. Jud Brewer’s Five Finger Breathing technique, which a 6 year old taught me. Let’s call him Rafael. PBS Newshour was recently here shooting a feature on DrawTogether (!) and we visited a DrawTogether Classroom in at Cesar Chavez Elementary in SF’s Mission District. I was speaking with the first graders about drawing and managing big feelings. Rafael got so excited by the mention of deep breathing that he jumped up, ran to the front of the class and taught us all how to focus our breath using this awesome technique. Turns out it was the practice popularized by Dr. Brewer. I’ve modified it slightly to become a drawing exercise: Five Finger Drawing.

Grab a pencil, piece of paper and maybe some colors and press play. Can’t wait to hear how it works for you.

xo,

w

If you value this podcast, please subscribe to support! A few bucks a month goes a long way. Thank you. <3

Helloooo!! It’s Friday! I highly recommend at some point today that you stop whatever you are doing, stand and/or stretch, shake the fingers, shake the arms, and do The Friday Dance. I feel like we all could use it, right?? Well, I hope this newsletter also helps inspire and excite: we have a new super important DrawTogether Podcast episode for you, and a very special DrawTogether group effort. Let’s go!

NEW DT PODCAST EPISODE. (Hit that big play button above to listen!) Last week I got a call from Special DT Guest and pediatrician Dr. Lee Atkinson-McEvoy. She said she’s witnessing higher levels of anxiety amongst her young patients than ever before. Dr. Lee asked if DrawTogether would consider dedicating an episode to helping kids of all ages process feelings. Of course we said YES.

For the next few weeks, the DT Podcast will focus on drawing to help identify, clarify and process emotions. Let’s call them “Emotional Doodles.” Like everything DrawTogether, these exercises are intended for kids, but growns might find them helpful, too. We’ve heard the DT Podcast is also excellent family dinner table material, and awesome to use in the classroom. Remember, these podcasts are a quick bites - starting points for exploration. Keep drawing on your own and see where it leads. Please share thoughts, suggestions or requests you for future DT podcasts with a comment. DrawTogether is a big community endeavor, and we want to hear from you.

LET’S DO THIS: Help Boost Kids Creativity with Art Supplies! I know from personal experience how much having quality art supplies as a kid cultivates creativity and confidence. Unfortunately, many schools don’t have visual art classes, let alone any decent art supplies. DrawTogether’s non-profit “DrawTogether Classrooms” just launched our pilot program: we’re delivering FREE social-emotional art programming to 100 classrooms in 30 states. (Woot Woot!) Now, with you, we want to make sure those kids have the art supplies they need.

We just kicked off a Go Fund Me campaign to deliver 2,000 beautifully designed, high quality DrawTogether art supply kits directly to emerging kid artists in classrooms around the country. We need your help. Just $30 will give a kid a life-changing art kit. For $300 bucks, you’re supporting ten small artists. And for $1,000, you’ll stock an entire classroom with supplies for a year, and change these kids lives forever - and we’ll send you a kit of your own. :)

Every dollar makes a difference, as do tweets and posts - please kick in if you can, and please help us spread the word. Hit the button below to share this email with a friend. Pass it on! Thank you so, so much.

It’s an exciting time for DrawTogether. I have a little DT insider info I’ll share on Sunday - subscribe to support DT and get the inside scoop.... Meanwhile, thank you for being part of this incredible growing community. Pencils up, friends. Everything is better...

xo, w

Hello! NEW DRAWTOGETHER PODCAST IS HERE. This is perhaps the silliest drawing exercise to have ever appeared on any drawing podcast, ever. (Yes, I know, the DT podcast is the *only* drawing podcast. Still.) I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so if you’re playing the audio for a kid/family/classroom, keep this on the DL...

We’re doing Blindfold Drawing. It’s fun, magical, and hilarious - and contains serious art lessons. All you need is paper, a pencil, and a mask - and then press PLAY above.

Blindfold drawing makes us rely on our minds and movement to create an image. It removes the option to “get it right” or “do a good drawing” based on our limited visual expectations. I have a hunch you’ll be surprised by how specific your memories/mind-images are when you use your hands to imagine and remember. (Remember, not everyone thinks in pictures. There’s no “right” or “better” way for our minds to work.) And, when we do them multiple times, our drawings evolve. We slow down. Let go of expectations. Our hand/mind coordination improve.

Here are my blindfolded drawn snow people:

Look at the change from Number 1 to Number 4!!! Okay, maybe i’m the only one who gets giddy about this stuff, but it’s such a great example of how we build muscles through removing limiting expectations, slowing down, and practicing. The podcast is short today with some bonus drawing suggestions at the end. Have fun!

And! A reminder that we’re doing a GoFundMe to send DrawTogether Art Kits to kids around the US who don’t have quality art supplies in their classrooms. We’re half way to our goal, so if you can contribute a few bucks to support a kid, please do! AND! If you want to support THIS podcast/newsletter - AKA world’s first and only drawing podcast - please subscribe:

Number Four thanks you.

xoxo,

w

Hey there!

This is our third and final episode in our series “Emotional Doodles” - drawing to alleviate anxiety. Reminder: UCSF Pediatrician and friend of DrawTogether, Dr. Lee Atkinson-McEvoy, shared that she’s seeing unprecedented levels of anxiety in kids and asked if DrawTogether could help. So we’re doing a few short, simple, fun drawing podcast exercises here on the podcast that can help reduce anxiety in a big way. You can do them on your own, with family members or friends, or with an entire classroom.

The first episode explored how drawing varying types of abstract marks can help us identify feelings, and scribble them out of our bodies and onto the page. The second episode used drawing to focus our attention on things we’re grateful for, which studies show helps reduce anxiety and depression. And TODAY, we do a simple and powerful doodling exercise that I do all the time. Let’s call it LINES. It’s simple, powerful meditative drawing exercise. After a few minutes you feel more calm, less anxious, and you end up with a pretty cool drawing.

So grab a pen and a piece of paper and press play. It’s less than 10 minutes. :)

And COMMENTS! Friends! I heart feedback! Your input helps me know what is and isn’t working. Are these too long? Too short? Too literal? Too abstract? Easy to follow? This is one big experiment, so please take a moment and leave a comment or shoot me a message. I so, so appreciate it. Thank you!

And thanks Chris Colin for the DT Podcast drawing music, Amy Standen for the edit, and Thao Nguyen for the DT theme song.

See you next week with a very different kind of drawing direction.

xoxo,w