PK 163: Can ANYONE Learn How to Draw? Interview With Jason Brubaker from Coffee Table Comics

Can anyone learn how to draw?

Jason Brubaker, this week’s podcast guest, certainly thinks so. And he should know. After starting out as a completely self-taught artist, he ended up working in Hollywood for 20 years, spending his last 7 years at Dreamworks working on the Kung Fu Panda trilogy.

These days, he makes comics full-time at Coffee Table Comics, having produced titles such as the award-winning reMIND, Phobos, and Sithrah.

He also finds time to help other artists, offering a wide range of resources on his website.

And now, he’s included the exact same techniques he used to learn how to draw anatomy in one handy resource for artists – The Cognitive Drawing workbook.

So, we caught up with him to find out more about this exciting project…and why he genuinely believes anyone can learn how to draw if they use the right learning techniques…

Why Jason Believes Anyone Can Learn how to Draw

 

I wanna do stuff because I want a finished product at the end, or I want a piece of animation, or I want a comic book at the end of it. And I’m learning everything so I can do that finished product – I’m not learning everything just so I can learn everything.” ~ Jason Brubaker.

Key Takeaways From This Interview:

  • Why working on personal projects can help you learn new skills and open doors for your creative career
  • Why even experienced artists are still learning
  • How Jason got started in the industry, and how he developed his technique of cognitive drawing to help him draw anatomy and pretty much everything else
  • How to focus on learning the stuff you really enjoy doing
  • How to develop your own style, and why this is always influenced in part by the artists you admire
  • How to learn a new skill quickly…without burning yourself out
  • How to retain more information about the things you’re trying to draw
  • Why the Cognitive Drawing worksheet is so effective for individuals and study groups
  • How to really learn something new from using reference pics
  • Where to get the Cognitive Drawing worksheet and find out more about Coffee Table Comics and Jason’s other projects.

Watch the preview for the Cognitive Drawing worksheet below:


We hope this week’s interview with Jason Brubaker inspires you to learn how to draw.

We’d love to hear your feedback on his Cognitive Drawing worksheet, so let us know in the comments box below!

People on this Episode:

Links From This Episode:

Subscribe via iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher Radio.
Android users can grab our RSS feed here.
Right-click and “save file as” for direct download.

Thanks for listening to our show! We’ll be back next Wednesday morning 8AM EST.

The Pencil Kings podcast is sponsored by Freshbooks – small business accounting software for artists and creatives.

Cheers,

Mitch

PS, there is also Pencil Kings content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest