I just didn’t know where else to go to look for guidance and direction, and my problems remained unsolved. I just hate it when that happens. I don’t like my problems unsolved. If I don’t solve them, I don’t grow. And if I don’t grow, that means my drawing skills are not improving. Without my skills, I’m nothing. I won’t be able the subjects that I wanted to draw, and I would’ve lost my freedom of expression.

Determined to not let that happen, I ask myself if there’s a foolproof way to avoid that. Thank goodness, after much pondering, there’s a way, and I’m going to share it with you.

You see, we artists are sometimes like sailors. We want to get from point A to point B but the current keeps sweeping our ship sideways. A ship doesn’t arrive at its destination by travelling in a straight line. It travels in a zig zag manner to stay the course.

So this is an ah-ha moment for me. All the sailor needs is a compass to stay on course, even though there’s that busy body current that keeps sweeping the ship side ways.

What does that mean for the artist? It means that we, as artists, should have compasses just like the sailors. But our compasses are actually just guiding principles.

When we are guided by principles, we remain flexible and would be able to stay the course easily. A good example of a guiding principle would be to always keep a balance in your drawing.

So if you’re going to draw a huge white cloud on the top right hand corner, add some dark colored rocks on the bottom left hand corner to balance things out. This will be your guiding principle and if you follow your principles closely, you can learn from all your previous experiences, build on them a little bit, and continue to grow without limit as an artist.

I can’t stress this nough in the home study course that I prepared for my website visitors, and I give them loads and loads of sound principles.

When you’re searching for excellent learning materials, look for those with solid drawing principles in them, and let them become part of your compass.