2. Moving a pencil (or crayon, or chalk, or marker, or stick) around is a basic human impulse.
3. Drawing is not static - it is recorded movement.
4. A drawing is good because you drew it.
5. Art is a feeling made visible.
6. Drawing is a risk because it can be seen. Visibility feels risky.
7. If you draw something and then erase it, you still drew it. You can't change that. Ha!
8. Same goes if you draw something and then crumple it up.
9. You don't have to be good at drawing for drawing to be good for you.
10. We don't tell people not to use words because they are not Mark Twain. Nor should we tell people not to draw because they are not Picasso.
11. You don't have to draw things or subjects. Make marks, angry ones or happy ones or mellow ones.
12. If you're saying, "This drawing isn't any good..." you've missed the point of drawing.
13. When you look at someone else's drawing, really look at it and react to what is there. Don't react to what you think the artist was trying to draw. React to the actual lines and shapes.
14. Don't say, "What is that?" Say, "Tell me about your drawing."
15. Don't say, "What are you going to draw?" Say, "I'm looking forward to seeing your drawing."
16. Laughter while drawing is healthy and good.
17. If you are a grownup, you are hereby banished from saying "I can't draw" in front of kids. You now have to say, "Let me give it a try."
18. If your brain is being noisy, take out a pen and doodle.
19. Art is the inconvenient process of insisting on pulling apart our perceptions and habits.
20. If you watch kids play enough, you'll notice they are drawing all the time - making marks with a stick, using their finger to draw in the frost on the window, manipulating the bubbles in the bath, making shapes in the air.
21. Dance is drawing with your body.
22. If you don't like to kill trees, get a whiteboard or a chalkboard or a magna-doodle.
23. Art gives kids the power to hold up their end of the conversation with the world about who they are.
24. If you draw something you don't like, go back in and make it the worst drawing you possibly can.
25. Okay, go draw.
