078: You Are a Storytelling Machine

Your stories, big and small, have great power...

Welcome to week 78 of the Draw or Die Newsletter for artists…

“Let me tell you about the time I was bit by a rattlesnake...”

But…. First up, some Housekeeping:

• Promptober is almost upon us! I want to encourage you to draw along with us every day in October. The official prompt list is out so you can get ready to rock or thinking ahead. Make sure you’re subscribed to the youtube channel so you don’t miss some surprises there every week.

• - Special Promptober Merch available: Promptober Shirt, and Promptober sticker.

• 🔥 New EMBROIDERED WAFFLE KNIT BEANIE available in the shop. Keep your heads warm!

• 🥳 This week we hit our 100th member of the DAILY DRAWING CLUB! 🥳Thank you Randy Romero! But then… we dropped back down to 99 😔. Will you help us stay in the 100s? Join up! (Don’t forget, members get 10% off draw or die merch and other perks)

• For anyone who has bought merch from us in the past (or if we have your address somehow) keep an eye on your mailboxes at home! 🤘🏻✏️

Ally and I also just want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who is supporting the club in some way, either with merch, tagging your art, building community. It’s a vibe. Let’s keep it going. We can’t keep this up without YOUR good energy.

DRAW or DIE!

Here’s this week’s letter and challenge….

Story Time…

Have you ever gathered with others around a fire, or kitchen table and told stories? You know, just “shot the shit”, as we say. It feels like one person’s story seems to kick off another. And then another.

One of my favorite things about being an artist, and how I see and experience the world is that pieces of our lives, both big and small, are all stories in some way.

Humans are storytelling machines.

We are born to do it. And I would love to see more artists (like YOU) telling more stories with YOUR art.

I want to challenge you this week to draw a little story from life.
Limit yourself to just 4 panels maximum.

It doesn’t have to be YOUR life.

It might be something you overheard. A memory of some kind.

I’m always listening to the conversations and more often than not I’m thinking
“how would I draw this?”

Stories are power… Visual Stories are SUPER POWERED…

There are stories we can choose to share with others, or keep to ourselves.

Stories when spoken aloud are only there for an instant, captured in our memory for us to recall again, or vanish. Some stories are pretty forgettable.

And then there are the stories that are DRAWN OUT.

Maybe in a few panels at a time, or just one piece at a time.
These kind of stories we leave behind for someone else to experience some day.

So… let me go first…

“Let me tell you about the time I was bit by a rattlesnake...”

True story.

I drew this out rough just to show you, it doesn’t have to be fancy.

What is the REAL POWER of this story? Well… maybe for quite some time moving forward in your life, when you hear “rattlesnake” or see one in a movie (hopefully not in real life) you’ll think of MY story of embarrassment, but lucky to be alive.

Interestingly enough, you may recall this visual story in more vivid detail than the roughs I drew it in.

Now it’s YOUR TURN….

🔥This Week’s Drawing CHALLENGE!

TELL US A STORY.

Share your story and tag it #drawordieclub on the platform of your choice. If you don’t want to share it publicly, throw us a DM on Instagram if you want to share there.

Sound fun??? Try it! Remember it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece… just a little slice of life.

Looking forward to reading your stories…
Until next week… DRAW or DIE!

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