Keep Going – Austin Kleon
“Keep Going” by Austin Kleon teaches the creative to maintain their endurance and energy. There is no finish line or retirement for the creative person!
Life is an art, not a science. Your mileage may vary. Take what you need and leave the rest.
Juxtapositions
- New ideas are formed by interesting juxtapositions, and interesting juxtapositions happen when things are out of place.
- Art is also made out of what is ugly or repulsive to us. Part of the artist’s job is to help tidy up the place, to make order out of chaos, to turn trash into treasure, and to show us beauty where we can’t see it.
- No artist can work simply for results; he must also like the work of getting them.
- Every day is a potential seed that we can grow into something beautiful.
Connection Vs. Disconnection
Creativity is about connection – you must be connected to others in order to be inspired and share your own work – but it is also without disconnection. You must retreat from the world long enough to think, practice your art, and bring forth something worth sharing with others
When you pay attention to your life, it not only provides you with the material for your art, it also helps you fall in love with your life.
Quotes on Drawing
- “Drawing is simply another way of seeing, which we don’t really do as adults.” – Chris Ware
- ”Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a mediation.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Mind’s Eye
- ”If you draw, the world becomes more beautiful, far more beautiful.” – E.O. Plaven
- ”Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world. I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.” – Frederick Franck