Seventy-Two

Study (after Watteau). I have to admit, I feel a little weird about copying other artist's drawings and posting them on the internet. When someone compliments one of them I tend to cut them off with "You know that's a copy, right?!"

Then, today, I stumbled upon a great little book called "Steal Like An Artist, 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative," by Austin Kleon. The first page I opened up to said "Start Copying." Kleon writes, "Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don't come out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying." He reminds us that we learn to write by copying the alphabet, that musicians learn to play by practicing scales, and that even the Beatles started out as a cover band.