Dreaming Awake as an Artist

Quotes from Ian Mccaig interview (Schoolism)

“Every night everyone goes to sleep, they dream perfect human beings, they’re wonderfully lit and animated, and they never think about it, they never tried to create those, they just did it. I find a lot of teaching people to draw is just getting them to dream while they are awake and then just get out of their way so they don’t mess it up.”

“Boil it down into a game. You remember when you were learning to walk and learning to speak, you take your first steps and fall, but you got up because it was fun. If you can make drawing fun again, if you can make people little kids and not worry about if it’s good, just worry about if it’s fun, you can teach anybody to learn. It’s mostly this fear of falling and fear of failing and looking stupid, but kids don’t worry about that.”

“I love the bigger brain, I love the things you get, just the inspiration and the energy you get from being around other artists. […] Even to go sit in a mall and draw […] I guess if I’m drawing and I run out of inspiration for that moment all I have to do is just look up! And there they are, there’s all these characters, there’s all these people. I just have to stop for a minute and watch them interact and I’m back. […] That’s the juice that feeds me is life. If you want to be a great artist, lead a great life. Have rich experiences and things you can draw from. And try to be a good person too because you’ve got some morals there to pit against what these stories are about, they’re about triumphing over evil or conflict between two forces. So don’t shy away from things in life, live it to the fullest, experience it and that’s what you’re bringing to your drawings.”