The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study
By Kimon Nicolaïdes
Reviewed by DavidDWhite.Art
Kimon Nicolaïdes’ The Natural Way to Draw has held a singular place in the literature of art education since its publication in 1941. It is not merely a drawing manual, but a comprehensive system—some would say ordeal—for reorienting the student’s relationship with both subject and medium. Rooted in Nicolaïdes’ tenure at the Art Students League in New York during the 1920s and 30s, the book reflects his conviction that drawing is neither a technical trick nor a purely intellectual exercise, but a lived, bodily experience requiring discipline, patience, and vulnerability.
A Pedagogy of Immersion
At the heart of Nicolaïdes’ method is his insistence that drawing should emerge from direct engagement with the world, not from formulas, shortcuts, or preconceived notions of what an object “ought” to look like. He identifies four central practices—gesture, contour, modeled drawing, and memory drawing—which together form a cycle of perception, comprehension, and expression.
- Gesture drawing trains the artist to capture energy and rhythm. In quick, loose sketches, the student is asked to feel the life force of a figure, rather than map its anatomy.
- Contour drawing, often done blind, forces a slow, unbroken tracing of the subject’s edge. Here the artist’s hand becomes an extension of the eye, learning to follow rather than command.
- Modeled drawing develops sensitivity to mass and volume, encouraging the student to render not just surfaces but the tactile reality of form.
- Memory drawing requires reproducing an image or pose after it is gone, strengthening retention, comprehension, and interpretive imagination.
These practices are not isolated drills but interdependent strands, woven into a year-long program of over a thousand hours. Nicolaïdes lays out a demanding schedule—ten to fifteen hours per week—that resembles more the curriculum of a conservatory than a hobbyist’s guide. He expects the student to work with monastic dedication, often without immediate visible reward.
The Teacher’s Voice
One of the book’s enduring qualities is Nicolaïdes’ tone. He writes with warmth and encouragement, yet with absolute conviction in the necessity of rigor. His instructions often sound less like suggestions and more like commands, reflecting his belief that discipline is itself an artistic tool. He reassures the student that frustration, confusion, and apparent failure are signs of progress—that the act of doing is more important than the results at any given stage.
Notably, Nicolaïdes includes relatively few illustrations, and those that appear are rough, unpolished, and emphatically not intended as ideals to imitate. This decision is deliberate: he sought to prevent students from confusing art education with rote copying, and to push them instead toward genuine perception. For readers accustomed to glossy “how-to-draw” manuals, this absence of polished examples can be jarring, but it underscores the book’s central thesis—that drawing is learned through experience, not through imitation.
Enduring Influence and Critique
Eighty-plus years later, The Natural Way to Draw remains both revered and controversial. Admirers praise it as transformative, a book that forces the artist to break down old habits of seeing and build a new foundation of embodied perception. For many, its insistence on gesture and contour has become a cornerstone of figure drawing pedagogy.
Critics, however, argue that its program is impractically rigid, particularly for modern students balancing art study with other commitments. The sheer number of hours prescribed can feel punitive, and the lack of visible results in the early stages has caused more than one student to abandon the program in frustration. Others note that the text is so deeply tied to Nicolaïdes’ presence as a teacher that, without his in-person guidance, the book can feel forbidding or opaque.
And yet, perhaps paradoxically, it is precisely this uncompromising quality that secures its place as a classic. In an age where art instruction is often commodified into bite-sized tutorials and quick results, The Natural Way to Draw offers a counterpoint: a slow, difficult path that privileges depth over speed, process over product.
Conclusion
The Natural Way to Draw is not a book to be read casually, nor a manual to be flipped through for tricks. It is a sustained, rigorous course that demands patience, humility, and an almost devotional level of practice. It does not flatter the student with easy victories, but it does offer, for those willing to commit, a profound transformation in how one perceives, feels, and ultimately draws.
Nicolaïdes’ method is not for everyone. But for the serious student of drawing—especially those who sense that art is as much about perception and being as it is about craft—his book remains a rare and essential guide.
Verdict: A challenging but invaluable classic that offers no shortcuts, only the possibility of deep artistic growth. Best approached not as a book, but as a year-long apprenticeship with a demanding, brilliant teacher.