Many years ago Kimon Nicolaïdes, an art instructor, produced an immensely popular book, The Natural Way to Draw. The book is full of wisdom, including a schedule of drawing exercises, a boatload of drawing examples from raw beginner to accomplished master, and the two words of advice that have yielded for me almost fifty years’ worth of rich reward: “Draw anything.”

A willingness to draw anything is a willingness to fail. Every drawing is an approximation, but some subjects for drawings–layered reflections, for instance–are acid tests of patience and skill. The drawing I provide for this post certainly fails the test. It is clumsy and compositionally shaky. But my next drawing will be better precisely because this one is so flawed. It builds my determination to slow down, focus and consider. The next drawing is always, to some extent, an apology and a repentance for previous drawings.