{"id":341,"date":"2025-08-29T07:17:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=341"},"modified":"2025-08-29T07:17:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:17:53","slug":"master-drawing-skills-with-the-natural-way-to-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"Master Drawing Skills with The Natural Way to Draw"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Kimon Nicola\u00efdes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reviewed by DavidDWhite.Art<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kimon Nicola\u00efdes\u2019 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\u2014some would say ordeal\u2014for reorienting the student\u2019s relationship with both subject and medium. Rooted in Nicola\u00efdes\u2019 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Pedagogy of Immersion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the heart of Nicola\u00efdes\u2019 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 \u201cought\u201d to look like. He identifies four central practices\u2014gesture, contour, modeled drawing, and memory drawing\u2014which together form a cycle of perception, comprehension, and expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>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.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Contour drawing, often done blind, forces a slow, unbroken tracing of the subject\u2019s edge. Here the artist\u2019s hand becomes an extension of the eye, learning to follow rather than command.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Modeled drawing develops sensitivity to mass and volume, encouraging the student to render not just surfaces but the tactile reality of form.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Memory drawing requires reproducing an image or pose after it is gone, strengthening retention, comprehension, and interpretive imagination.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These practices are not isolated drills but interdependent strands, woven into a year-long program of over a thousand hours. Nicola\u00efdes lays out a demanding schedule\u2014ten to fifteen hours per week\u2014that resembles more the curriculum of a conservatory than a hobbyist\u2019s guide. He expects the student to work with monastic dedication, often without immediate visible reward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Teacher\u2019s Voice<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the book\u2019s enduring qualities is Nicola\u00efdes\u2019 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\u2014that the act of doing is more important than the results at any given stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notably, Nicola\u00efdes 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 \u201chow-to-draw\u201d manuals, this absence of polished examples can be jarring, but it underscores the book\u2019s central thesis\u2014that drawing is learned through experience, not through imitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Enduring Influence and Critique<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 Nicola\u00efdes\u2019 presence as a teacher that, without his in-person guidance, the book can feel forbidding or opaque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nicola\u00efdes\u2019 method is not for everyone. But for the serious student of drawing\u2014especially those who sense that art is as much about perception and being as it is about craft\u2014his book remains a rare and essential guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study By Kimon Nicola\u00efdes Reviewed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,9,12,10,11,3,5,48,49,19,14,7],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-abstract","tag-abstract-art","tag-abstract-artist","tag-abstract-painting","tag-acrylic","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-book-review","tag-draw","tag-drawing","tag-motivation","tag-painting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":107,"url":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=107","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":0},"title":"Another Website Update\u2026","author":"DavidDWhite.Art","date":"August 23, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"OK the Art 4 Sale page is finally completed updated to include all of what I have to offer right now. I decided that yesterday I would just get it done. I still have a blank canvas sitting on my easel waiting to get paint put on it, that should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/AdobeStock_147660479-scaled.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/AdobeStock_147660479-scaled.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/AdobeStock_147660479-scaled.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/AdobeStock_147660479-scaled.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/AdobeStock_147660479-scaled.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":347,"url":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=347","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":1},"title":"Life Update: Busy Times and New Adventures","author":"DavidDWhite.Art","date":"September 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Just wanted to drop in and provide some sort of update because I haven\u2019t been able to get here and do so as of late. What has been going on with me as of late, a whole lot of nothing, as I haven\u2019t had time to do much of anything\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=256","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":2},"title":"Slow going\u2026","author":"DavidDWhite.Art","date":"October 22, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"It has been a couple of weeks since my last post, I really need to do these more often so that I can keep people who might be interested in following something to read more often. I just finished a new piece which I will get some photos of and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"multicolored abstract painting","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/pexels-photo-1269968.jpeg?fit=1200%2C757&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/pexels-photo-1269968.jpeg?fit=1200%2C757&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/pexels-photo-1269968.jpeg?fit=1200%2C757&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/pexels-photo-1269968.jpeg?fit=1200%2C757&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/pexels-photo-1269968.jpeg?fit=1200%2C757&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=245","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":3},"title":"I am bad at this\u2026","author":"DavidDWhite.Art","date":"August 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"So it has been literally months since I have posted an update here, which proves how bad I am at this for sure. It is something I am working on though and trying to get better at it. But as far as my art goes I am still painting, usually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"person doodling on a booklet","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/pexels-photo-2324808.jpeg?fit=1200%2C795&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/pexels-photo-2324808.jpeg?fit=1200%2C795&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/pexels-photo-2324808.jpeg?fit=1200%2C795&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/pexels-photo-2324808.jpeg?fit=1200%2C795&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/pexels-photo-2324808.jpeg?fit=1200%2C795&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=411","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":4},"title":"Overcoming Daily Routines to Pursue Art Goals","author":"DavidDWhite.Art","date":"March 19, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Just wanted to throw up a post as I am trying to do this more regularly, even if it is not much of a post.This are still status quo as I have had no time to do anything as of late just as always over the last couple of years.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":322,"url":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?p=322","url_meta":{"origin":341,"position":5},"title":"Navigating Life Changes: From Birthday to Budget Cuts","author":"DavidDWhite.Art","date":"June 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was my birthday, I will not be disclosing what age I am now currently at though. That was the good part of the day, the other part of the day wasn\u2019t so great as it was also the first day of work with the company that cut my pay\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/daviddwhite.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1.png?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddwhite.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}