This book is about drawing creatively. It will show you how to use your imagination to create drawings that go beyond what may be set up or posed in a studio and drawn from observation -- in other words, how to create drawings that originate in the mind. This is not something that only the artistically gifted can achieve: it is possible for anybody. When an artist is described as 'gifted', 'talented', 'creative' or 'original', it is usually implied that his or her ability is very rare and somehow magically endowed at birth. Most practical books on drawing tend, however unintentionally, to reinforce this myth. Their authors usually avoid the notion of creativity, concentrating almost exclusively upon tuition in drawing from observation of a posed model, a still life or a landscape. On rare occasions they may go so far as to suggest using photographs as a basis for drawing but, aware that this can lead to sterile, lifeless results, mention the practice only as a last resort. Creativity, it seems, is the exclusive domain of that rara avis, the talented genius, who presumably doesn't need to read how-to-do-it books! But, however uncommon such talented geniuses might be, imaginative creative artists most certainly are not.

Each of us has the natural ability to conceive pictures in our mind. If this were not the case we wouldn't readbooks of fiction, for in order to understand the narrative we have to be able to imagine the fictional events, settings and characters as if they were real. These imagined scenes may not be so clearly visualized as to be like a videotape playing inside our heads, but the substance is there. If we develop the necessary skills, we can use such mental pictures as sources for creative drawing.