Watch this if you think you can’t draw

Danny Gregory of Sketchbook School recently released a beautiful animation he made about the common misconception of not knowing how to draw, being afraid to start, and learning that everything gets easier with practice, even drawing. If you are convinced that you cannot draw (as I once was) and have doubts about your drawing abilities (as I do frequently), this is the video for you.

Source: Sketchbook Skool YouTube channel

This is how Danny described the complex process of making his first animated film in one of his newsletters:

“For the last four months, I have been working on my very first animated film.

It’s a project I never thought I could pull off, but, well, here we are, the day of the premiere, so I guess I was wrong!

I wrote the story this film is based on a couple of years ago as one of these weekly essays. It meant a lot to me right away. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself in it too.

When I published the essay, a lot of people asked me what else I planned to do with the story. Would I illustrate it and make it in a book? I wasn’t sure.

But more and more I felt like I wanted to bring it to life as vividly as I could so I could share my message about art with as many people as possible. So I decided it should be an animated film.

One small problem: I had no idea how to make an animated film!

But I decided to find out.

It’s taken me a good chunk of time to make this film and it has been a real education, my own private film school. From creating the characters, doing a lot of test drawings and storyboards, learning how to use a whole bunch of different software tools, figuring out how to make characters move and talk, building 3D sets and lighting them, editing, picking music — all while writing two weekly essays and doing my real job at Sketchbook Skool. Whew!

I’d love to thank the crew and the actors, the animators, the costumers, the writers and producers. Unfortunately there aren’t any. Just me! (Maybe next time I’ll get some help.)”