Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art

by Nicholson Baker

From the acclaimed and bestselling writer Nicholson Baker, a deeply personal account of his journey learning how to paint for the first time, and a meditation on the power of art in times of crisis

Nicholson Baker wanted to learn how to paint.

In 2019, after years of researching and writing about secret and often horrible government programs for his book My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act , he was wiped out. Having been steeped for so long in the history of war, violence, and conspiracy, the world had lost some of its brightness. Photography had scratched a creative itch for years, but now, Baker was desperate to squeeze more out of what he saw – he wanted to live, slowly, through the snatches of life he was recording in photos. Maybe, he thought, he could learn to paint? The idea consumed him, but he was nagged by an even more debilitating What if he failed?

Finding a Likeness is Baker’s record of the years he worked to improve his artistic skills, beginning with his first, humble attempts to set paintbrush to paper. Driven by a natural curiosity and a strong desire to paint faces, clouds, and landscapes that actually resemble faces, clouds, and landscapes, he attends classes from local artists, watches YouTube tutorials, and seeks out master painters from the past and present in the hopes of uncovering their secrets. In his inimitable voice, Baker recounts the highs and lows of the creative process, reflects on memories of growing up as the son of two painters, and learns what it means to really see.

Filled with Baker’s own art, as well as the work of artists from around the world, Finding a Likeness is a tender and deeply felt testimony to taking a step back and going back to basics. Baker improves dramatically in his craft, but as he considers what it means to try, fail, and try again, he discovers far more than what it takes to paint a cloud – rather, he shows us how to bear witness to the world, to the good and the bad, and to do it all justice with paper and ink.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, How To

352 pages, Paperback

Published April 2, 2024

About the author

Nicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Manhattan in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He has published sixteen books--including The Mezzanine (1988), U and I (1991), Human Smoke (2008), The Anthologist (2009), and Substitute (2016)--and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays. He has received a National Book Critics Circle award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the Herman Hesse Prize, and the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano (co-author with Baker of The World on Sunday, 2005), founded the American Newspaper Repository in order to save a large collection of U.S. newspapers, including a run of Joseph Pulitzer's influential daily, the New York World. In 2004 the Repository’s holdings became a gift to Duke University. Baker and Brentano have two children; they live on the Penobscot River in Maine.

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best word I can think of to describe this book is "charming." Though the author is not much older than me, he struck me as a grandfatherly type. A memoir of a person’s journey while learning to paint doesn’t sound like captivating reading, but I read this in just two nights and enjoyed it a great deal. Seeing the author’s work progress from awkward, skewed drawings to beautiful, lifelike paintings was extremely gratifying. The tone of the book was very friendly and just seemed so honest and real. I really loved this book and highly recommend it.

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Penguin Random House for sending me this book!
Once upon a time ago, I turned from working on a degree in fine arts to fine arts education. However instead of teaching fine arts, I taught special education. In my spare time I wrote a curriculum for visual fine arts for the school system, K-12.
Throughout my life I have continued to produce works of art in photography, printmaking, painting and carving. However in the last ten years I have lapsed into my strongest pastime of doodling, forsaking all the other forms of art. (As an art student at Purdue University, I received an A in doodling from William Hockhousen. It was the only grade ever given in that art form. I took it as a compliment.)
So where am I now? Yes, I still doodle. I doodled all morning instead of writing this review. Over the years I have stocked up on many of the same drawing implements mentioned in this book.
This book is excellent. For it instilled a once held passion to create again in drawing and painting. There are lots of new ideas given here that I’d like to try out.
I look forward to seeing this book in color when it comes out in April!
The only drawback is the excessive amount of drawings by the author. This could have been two books instead of one.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a gem. I really enjoyed it.

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. Over the past couple of years, I've been working on finding hobbies that I enjoy that are outside of reading. I took some painting classes in high school and was an art major in college, so I'm familiar with the basics of drawing, painting, color theory, etc. and have experience in a handful of materials, but I've never considered myself an artist. I've never felt like my art is good enough (whatever that means) and that I don't have any original ideas or style, so I've put off really devoting time to creating – which only makes the problem worse because if I don't actually practice and spend time on it, how can I improve?

Reading how Baker took up drawing and tried his hand at many mediums and many methods, until he found his groove, inspired me to pick up my supplies again. I enjoyed reading how he kept trying and exploring different ways of doing things, experimenting with different materials.

The prodigy is a rare occurrence, and most people don't start off being amazing no matter the medium (drawing, singing, dancing, piano, guitar, or what have you). It takes many hours of practice to understand and get comfortable and learn what works well. It was incredibly helpful seeing Baker stumble his way through it and was a much-needed reminder that everyone has to start somewhere.

[Dan Pasquini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opens up important new ground between "I should do something" and actually doing anything. Reading about someone else beginning to learn a thing is almost an accomplishment!

[John’aLee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up at a Library in Idaho while staying with my daughter for 2 weeks. A fun little read to keep me inspired to ‘art’ while I was away from home and without my art supplies.

[Jorge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm on my own journey of rediscovering drawing, and that's why this book called my attention.

It starts with the author sharing some learnings from his experiences plus trying to find what he likes to do. Both were interesting things to share and you could see how he was growing as an artist.

After leaving oils and gouache, he decides to draw portraits, but decides he doesn't want to learn how faces work. It was frustrating because I have been in the same position and I could recognize the problems he was having. Instead of doing the legwork, he begins to trace everything and tries to convince himself that it is not the most awful decision.

The rest of the book is a long list of uninteresting and flat traced portraits of people from Reddit and samples from artists recommended to him by Pinterest. He has the chance to chat with actual artists, but doesn't share anything useful about them. Nothing longer than a paragraph or two.

At the end, after two years of drawing, he tries to draw something without tracing and it is obvious he doesn't understand how shapes and shadows work.

[Jenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I nearly jumped out of bed at 4AM when I finished reading this book, to go to my laptop and start looking up reference photos of people, because I struggle with drawing people - and Baker's story gave me a jolt of inspiration to just roll up my sleeves and get to drawing. (I'm going to do it now, after posting this.)

Read this book if you've ever uttered "I wish I could draw like that" when looking at other people's drawings and paintings, especially if you've ever felt that you're too old to start drawing and painting now. Baker, who at the time of writing is in his early 60s, records his progress in such a dryly hilarious manner that I found myself guffawing and rereading passages, and then feeling kind of bad that I was laughing when he said his drawing made a family look insane, or a person look like a screaming pope. Although Baker also bravely shows his drawings and paintings and the reference photos so that you can see his struggles and triumphs yourself, the way he writes about the process just adds another layer to the visuals, which is quite amazing, and makes the whole book a fun reading and seeing experience. There's also a very entertaining "side plot" where Baker is supposed to be writing a book about learning to paint, but while learning it, he gets obsessed with drawing portraits of people in pencil, and keeps on slipping back into it and finding himself rather doing anything else but using a brush.

I loved how Baker leaves a lot of room for acknowledging one's limitations and mistakes, and that the story isn't exactly a triumph of starting from nothing to becoming a YouTube sensation who now makes a living off painting portraits (because aren't all stories of triumph like that in our capitalist society, even when we talk about creativity...?). Instead, you can see his dogged pursuit of wanting to get better, the tools he uses, the tips and tricks he collects online and from workshops and... he does improve, by Doing It. At the end of the book, his drawings/paintings look... well, they look very good. I was extremely impressed.

This is one of those books I might have to own (I got this from the library), because Baker includes not just his own drawings and their reference photos, but paintings both by revered masters and people he (nor I...) had never heard of before, whose art to him is absolutely mesmerizing. I found myself writing down names to check out later, but I might as well have them all between one set of covers, available to browse and get lost in whenever.

[Val Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure I can adequately articulate how much I love this book. It hit at just the right time for me. All of the extreme stress of the last year at least, in terms of politics, watching burgeoning numbers of unhoused people with intense needs at my workplace (a public library), feeling and sharing the deep dread of the potential new POTUS, fearing for America and all we hold dear. The reasons for anxiety have been innumerable.

For a very long time, I have felt a deep need to create - somehow. I've taken up so many media over the years -painting in most mediums, sewing, quilting, jewelry design, on and on. I have a hard time with persistence when results aren't near what I want, so my progress in any pursuit has been minimal. Nicholson Baker has inspired me. In his relentless determination to improve his artistic expression, his journey was so fully inspiring. I am overwhelmingly impressed with his talent. Watching his skill and eye develop, gives me hope and inspiration.

So far, I have surrounded my space at home with an easel, pencils, pads, paints, books, brushes. I got in touch with a local artist and have taken one class so far. My short term goal is to capture my 3 year old granddaughter for Christmas - a goal my new mentor said is about the hardest beginning I could choose. I have a way of doing that!

Thank you, Nicholson Baker, for all of the inspiration I needed to move forward. I cherish this book!

[Peter Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicholson Baker
When Baker’s first novel, The Mezzanine, came out, I thought it was a work of genius. It is a micro-analysis of everyday life. The plot consists of a man in an office breaking a shoelace and then going out and getting another one. I wrote him a fan letter about the porridge temperature problem in Goldilocks. Shouldn’t baby bear’s porridge be even colder than Mama bears? After all a small bowl of porridge will hold less heat than a medium sized bowl. He wrote back but I was not satisfied with his reply and there our correspondence ended. For a couple of years I felt a strong identity with Baker because we are about the same age and with both have a daughter named Alice. Baker himself wrote a book about his strong identification and admiration for John Updike. Baker sent Updike a letter and Updike replied. Baker wrote about Updike’s books only from memory and that is what I do with my book reviews. I just wrote about what I remember, and sometimes I don’t remember much at all! A couple of years ago I tried to re-read the Mezzanine but found it impossible. Baker wrote a few more books in the style of Mezzanine and then went on to write other fiction and non fiction books. His most controversial book was an argument, through documents of the time, for pacifism in WWII.
Finding a likeness is about Baker’s quest to be better at drawing and painting. As a child I gave up on painting and drawing when my father criticized a picture I made of autumn leaves.

[Cecilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel profoundly ambivalent about this book. I worry it endorses Copy Culture and simultaneously diminishes the deep work of learning to see. The author didn't have the patience to learn how to draw freehand which is the hardest part of the whole enterprise. He's ok with that and it seems that many other professional artists are too. Are they short on time? Is there a rush? What does this say about us and the creation of art? There's no interpretation, no adding or subtracting, no improvisation to communicate something that something extra & personal which occurs between the sitter and the artist. If you're simply copying a photo, is that art? And why does one need or want a pencil drawing of a photo? Is this fast art like fast food?

I spent years learning to draw and paint portraits in pencil, charcoal, oil and watercolor. I feel abashed when I realize no one will ever know (or even care) that I traced nothing and didn't even start with an underdrawing. They'll look at both, conclude it's a good painting and that's it. Might as well be computer generated.

Baker spends a lot of time on the internet and social media instead of drawing. Maybe his attention span has diminished? He clearly enjoyed what he was doing and he improved somewhat, so that's good. But he probably could have learned to draw freehand if he spent all that time drawing rather than clicking on the internet. And he probably would have developed a personal style as well.

Oh well. Times change.

[Alex Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring. Vulnerable. Charming. With amazing little Baker-y turns of phrase and nuggets throughout.

Also, my experience of reading this book was enhanced having just read Baker's book BASELESS. Knowing that Baker was finishing up that book (about the US military's clandestine use of chemical weapons and Baker's myriad challenges in getting information about what really happened through the FOIA) as he was on this journey to find a likeness added a context to (and a conversation between) both works.

This book also felt like a time capsule of the first couple years of COVID, as we all began to isolate from one another without fully understanding what was happening... and then slowly began to reintegrate into the world with our respective battle wounds. There's something poignant about Baker connecting with fellow artists and subjects in the online world as the "real world" shuts down. And then ultimately, Baker taking a break from the online world as it becomes a distraction to him and his real world pursuit of his art.

All in all, it made me think and feel a lot of things. A great work, in my opinion.

[rumbledethumps · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a how-to book. It is very much a memoir about one man's journey to become somewhat better at art, with many of his drawings and paintings included. I liked his humility to show us where he started and was not so successful, and how he found a style that worked for him (tracing and then filling in the details, which, for those of you who say it's cheating: try it. It still requires skill, and as he notes at the end, it made him a better free-hand draftsman). And I loved his Bakeresque attention to the details of which tools he used for each of his pieces.

I've seen other reviews that basically ask, "Why does this book exist at all?" Which is actually kind of the point of the book. It doesn't have to exist, but it does. And that is more or less what Baker is saying about his art, and is in fact saying about your art. Do it because you like doing it and want to get better at it. Not because you want to "be an artist."

[Elizabeth Schlatter · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a quirky but enjoyable book! It's a visual diary of Baker's experiments in learning to draw and paint (primarily drawing). I liked how honest he was about the difficulties of learning something new, especially a skill involving hands. And how much he appreciated the work of other artists. It was also refreshing (for me) to see the creativity of so many artists who don't typically end up in a museum -- which is my typical source of inspiration. Baker approaches learning about the craft with a sense of parity for all artists, such as Old Master, Instagram famous, and local galleries, who are equally talented and offer lessons to learn. As I'm on my own artistic journey at the moment, I treasured reading this and am keen to improve my drawing skills!

[Alyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read little by little during a weekend where I needed books and nothing digital. Really loved this documentation of a years long project. I love how light is captured with acrylic paint, but I am currently committed to watercolor. I am not excited to draw people but I love painting flowers, plants, and birds, so what he shares about his process applies. I think I can do the same research he did with the Internet using the books at the library.

Two quotes I needed:
"Everyone has some festive corner in the funhouse of their soul."
(same for birds, plants, and birds)

"Shadows are shapes."

Also loved discovering Félix Vallotton. Swoon. And Klimt's trees. And Masayasu Uchida. Gordon Mortensen. Wow.
Thank you for the future rabbit holes.

[Paula Mallia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a how to book but rather one persons journey in art. He keeps saying his drawings but I guess for me a drawing is something you actually draw yourself and not trace and fill in afterwords. I did enjoy looking at the work of the other artists he mentioned though. I guess the most important take away is if you enjoy making art just do it your way and the way that makes you feel you have accomplished something and it makes you happy. It’s a quick read by the way lots of pictures to view.

[Oscar Ortiz · Rating 1 out of 5]

The publication of this book truly puzzles me. Mr. Bakes seems to have followed a common route taken by many aspiring artists today: seeking guidance online, watching tutorials, and studying books in an effort to improve their craft. However, despite his documented journey, there's little evidence of any significant progress. The advice offered in the conclusion is disappointingly ordinary, making me wonder how this book received professional reviews.

[Patrick Hanlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

NB’s exploration of drawing is a pulling back of the curtain on his recent life, the enchantment of being immersed in drawing and the beautiful art that has inspired him and the warm connections that formed in the process of drawing on a regular basis. The book is alive with his warmth for his subjects, the tools of the trade and the appreciation that comes with the relationships with the people he has encountered through this pursuit.

[Maya]

For me the best thing about this book was learning about an array of artists I hadn’t know of before. The authors journey to becoming a better artist was mildly interesting, but overall I think the book lacked deeper insights about the process he went through, the fact that what he set out to do was not what happened at all and perhaps even more exploration around how the pandemic affected that. At least, that’s what would have made this book better to me.

[Matt Present · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholson Baker has always seemed to me one of the most companionable writers. Books like The Anthologist and Box of Matches feel like spending quiet time with a shy, honest, very bright and very funny friend—one who can’t help but watch the world closely.

This book as much as any of the others provides that sensation of keen but open observation of the immediate world. Highly recommend.

[Jt O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun and quick read. The book is a lot more illustrations than text and I enjoyed seeing Mr Baker's progress as a artist. I even found some of it to be inspiring.
What worked?
* His enthusiasm
* His passion
* The color photos
* His willingness to show his frustrations
* His detail about the tools he used

What didn't work?
* Too many portraits

[Abby Newberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delightful read, a laid-back accompaniment of one writer on his journey to becoming a better artist just because he wanted to. Gentle and inspiring, it lays out and praises the iterative process of learning new techniques and materials, seeking out other artists, and ultimately growing in knowledge and skill through trial, error, and following one’s curiosity.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think this book should be read on a kindle. I missed out on all of the color in the paintings. Nevertheless, there was a lot of tracing and rationalization going on but I was impressed with many of the portraits.

[Birgit · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's fun to follow the author's journey into learning how to draw and paint, but about half way through it started to seem a bit repetitive. Got introduced to some fun new artists along the way though!

[Bejinha · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s bad.
A boring collection of his painting and painting he saw. Until he grades the one in the cover. Just this.

[Nick Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

How he got better - tracing and daily practice.

[Lenhardt Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book that motivates one to pick up a brush and begin seeing the world again.

[marissa]

“Everyone has some festive corner in the funhouse of their soul.”

[Laila Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most heartwarming books I've maybe ever read.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Motivational