The Foundational Importance of Drawing

If you ask an artist when they became an artist, many will tell you it began in childhood. I don’t know any great artist who didn’t start out drawing in their bedroom as a child. This is where artists are born.

I was no different. Many hours were spent alone in my bedroom. The walls, covered in rose-patterned wallpaper, gradually disappeared beneath layers of torn magazine advertisements, posters, photographs, and drawings taped from floor to ceiling. Those bedroom walls became an encyclopedia of influences, a visual archive of things that fascinated me, sparked my imagination, and stirred something deeper within. They were reminders of what I wanted to hold onto, study, and remember.

Drawing every day was more than a creative activity. It was therapy, escape, and discovery. I was building worlds of my own, places I could enter and leave at will. My bedroom became my first studio space, complete with stacks of magazines piled against the walls, a tape deck spinning the soundtrack of my youth, and carefully arranged displays of drawings and collected imagery. Looking back, it was also my first gallery.

Without realizing it, I was developing discipline. Growth was happening quietly in the background. I simply kept drawing.

British artist David Hockney was one artist who understood the importance of drawing. Throughout his career, he maintained that drawing teaches us how to truly see. Each time we sit down with a sketchbook, we sharpen our ability to observe the world around us. Drawing slows us down. It encourages us to pay attention.

Laying the Groundwork: Importance of Drawing

The importance of drawing in an artistic practice extends far beyond simple preparation:

Observational Training
Drawing forces artists to look with genuine curiosity. It trains the eye to recognize subtle shifts in shape, proportion, light, shadow, and form rather than relying on assumptions or visual shortcuts.

The Map of Ideas
Historically, drawing has been the artist’s most direct language. It serves as a conversation between thought and hand. As painter Edgar Degas observed, drawing is “the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression,” often revealing more about the artist than a finished painting.

Portability and Consistency
A sketchbook requires little more than paper and a pencil. It offers an accessible, judgment-free space for experimentation, daily practice, and the development of ideas wherever inspiration strikes.

The Foundation of Artistic Fundamentals
An understanding of form, proportion, composition, and value is most effectively learned through drawing. Before colour enters the conversation, artists learn to understand structure and space through line and tone.

Recently, during a lengthy hospitalization, I found myself unable to paint. For the first time in many years, I returned to a daily drawing practice. Over the course of a month away from the studio, I completed more than one hundred drawings. What began as a way to pass the time quickly became something much more meaningful. Drawing reconnected me to the fundamentals of my practice and reminded me why I became an artist in the first place.

As a painter, every work begins with a drawing. An idea first appears in a sketchbook before finding its way onto canvas, where layers of paint gradually bring the image to life. Drawing remains the blueprint, the foundation upon which the painting is built.

Today, I have begun considering a new project: a book dedicated to drawings created throughout my career. Bringing together decades of sketches, studies, and finished works on paper feels like a natural extension of my practice and a way to celebrate the role drawing has played in shaping my artistic journey.

Draw every day. It sharpens the eye, quiets the mind, and keeps you grounded. Long before there is a painting, there is a line. And often, that single line is where everything begins. See more of my process behind a painting here.