Once you start painting a personality rather than bricks, stone, and windows, your sketches take on new life. Each line, each brushstroke becomes imbued with the personality you are portraying.

This idea can be applied to anything you sketch. Mountains famously look like sleeping giants, and trees have multiple personalities. The idea is to sketch these personalities, and to see everything around you as a personification with unique characteristics.

Draw some simple squiggles on a page. These may seem meaningless on their own. But, like individual notes on a page, when they’re in tune with each other, they describe a symphony.

Allow yourself the freedom to suggest details, rather than dogmatically explain everything. Your sketch is a conversation, not a lecture.

Composition is a method of guiding a viewer’s eyes into and through a piece. When we look at paintings, we don’t take them all in at once. We read images in a certain order, like reading a book. Our eyes move in a dynamic sequence around a piece, seeing one area first, then moving on to secondary points of focus and lesser details, returning again to the main focal point. In truly great compositions, our eyes move around a painting, unfolding details, discovering secrets. We have the power to invite a viewer in and gently guide them around a piece.