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Five Ways to SeeFree preview12 min

Look like an artist

The ten-minute squint. What changes when you look at a thing you know.

What you need: a pencil, some paper, and anything in the room you want to draw.

Squint at the thing you have chosen. Do not draw it yet. Squint until the edges blur and the shapes get simpler — you should see big shapes first, like light and shadow.

Now draw only what you saw. Not the whole thing: the big shapes.

Squint again. Draw more. Squint once more.

When you sit back, most people have drawn something that looks like their subject, and some people have drawn something better than their subject. That is the whole trick.

Next lesson

Draw what you see, not what you think