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Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing: Meditation in Action
Franck, the author of Zen of Seeing, the classic guide, returns with more teachings and instructions.
169 pages, Paperback
First published August 17, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 25, 2020
I'd love to write a haiku as the review because the author showed such love for those, but I couldn't. :)
This book is about how we see life and seeing life, living life, we see ourselves. Life is a koan, you can only solve the koan by becoming it. Drawing is a mean to express that process of seeing, becoming, living.
I'm not sure I understand throughoutly what he hopes to transfer, but reading the book is a soothing, calming process. I find myself enjoy his view, his words, his tone, emotions, thoughts. And the drawings really touched me as they contained so much stories, so much life, with a sense of tranquility.
This book is about how we see life and seeing life, living life, we see ourselves. Life is a koan, you can only solve the koan by becoming it. Drawing is a mean to express that process of seeing, becoming, living.
I'm not sure I understand throughoutly what he hopes to transfer, but reading the book is a soothing, calming process. I find myself enjoy his view, his words, his tone, emotions, thoughts. And the drawings really touched me as they contained so much stories, so much life, with a sense of tranquility.
August 28, 2014
This book literally changed my life!! I got it as a gift and I use Zen drawing in all my art work now. It inspired me to write my first book in Dutch which was published in 2012 and as a result I was asked by an American publisher to write a practical book with lots of exercises and drawings. Together with other Franck fans we have created a zen drawing Facebook community were people can share their drawings and experiences.
I am very grateful to Frederick Franck for being such an inspiration and hopefully I can help in keeping his work alive.
I am very grateful to Frederick Franck for being such an inspiration and hopefully I can help in keeping his work alive.
January 11, 2021
Let me first say that the concept -- Zen -- is thought of by the experts as indefinable. I got this from my mother when she was reading a book devoted to the subject. (Isn't that funny?) Only after she'd gone through a couple of chapters, could she say that it meant being "still," and thus, the practice of Zen is the practice of being "still."
Franck offers another interpretation: "the awakening to the intimate contact with the sanity of our core..." (p. 23)... which sounds very intense, but it's not. It's supposed to help you achieve harmony with everything else.
I bought this book when I was very young, with my allowance, at a B Dalton's bookstore... I think. I simply liked the pictures. You could say I liked his artistic style, but Franck, I imagine, would interrupt and emphasize, as he does in his book, that he focuses not on the final product, that which one can see as a particular "style," but on the work itself.
He explains how seeing/drawing is his way of practicing Zen:
"From D.T. Suzuki, I learned that every art has its mystery, its spiritual rhythm, its myo in Japanese. The myo is intimately related to all the arts. The true artist, the artist-within is the one who is really moved by the myo, the as-is-ness of things... When I draw a tuft of grass, a face, a crowd, I am confronting this as-is-ness of things... The appearance of things is the manifestation of the myo, of their Meaning…” (p. 25)
In short, Zen is about seeing and not producing. It is not a means to another end but an end in itself, and this suggests that an art student, who wants to be more skilled in one's ability to put down on paper the idea of something one sees, is missing the point of practicing Zen.
Now, brought up on Western ideas, I immediately have an alternative interpretation to what may actually be at the heart of Zen Drawing. When finding a thing's "myo" through drawing, I want to say that any essence of spirit one records is not intrinsic of the thing but a product of something within oneself, and feeling united with the thing is the feeling of catharsis from seeing what was within oneself. While within oneself, it can feel boundless, but outside of oneself, one can appreciate it more consciously. If it caused you anxiety, it becomes manageable. If it only had the potential to bring you joy as an idea, it becomes a tangible thing that inspires joy without you calling up the idea yourself.
Franck quotes a handful of poets and says the mentality of a poet writing poetry is similar to the mentality of a person seeing/drawing. In my experience, writing poetry was always a way of getting the most out of an idea which may or may not have had anything to do with my immediate surroundings.
When I would get inspired by some material object in front of me, I would often project my feelings for something else onto my view of the object. Moreover, I believe that words are ideas and whatever they represent they do so symbolically.
Drawing gets a little closer to an object but it too can only do so symbolically.
In terms of Western thought, we are in the subject of perception, and I think Franck agrees with as much when he says, “Art is what opens up the clogged pores of perception…” (p. 154)
Overall, the author’s goal seems to be the expression of truth and thus proposes that Zen Seeing offers something true about the object one is seeing. I believe this is misleading and what one can achieve is not truth but at best honesty.
We see an object in the context of time and place and time involves how one feels and thinks at a given moment. How do you know that what you’ve recorded is not the spirit of the object but one's own spirit or how one feels at the time about the object or the feelings for something else which one was projecting onto the object?
The burgeoning Zenist in myself may rebut this by simply saying the above is a pitfall of continuing to distinguish one’s ego and oneself from all else. (Zenists believe that one is all and all is one... which sounds a lot like the motto of The Three Muskateers... but I digress.) Let’s get back to the subject of art, because that is how Franck accesses the idea of Zen, for himself and for us. He says drawing "has been described as the art of leaving out. The critical point is, of course, what to leave out and why... This apple tree is my koan." (p. 121)
This idea of recording the essence of a thing has been influential in Western abstract art. I’m thinking of the Japanese prints decorating the walls of Monet's home in Giverny or the ones Vincent and Theo Van Gogh collected in the hundreds. I'm also thinking of Picasso's delineation of a cow... or was that Bauhaus' Klee or Kandinsky who drew the essence of a cow?
Franck says that "True drawing demands craftsmanship of the hand as it does visual intelligence of the eye." (p. 118)
But intelligence to see what exactly? How can one ever know for sure one is seeing myo?
Franck says that what he draws "confronts [him] with the mystery of Being." (p. 151) He concedes that he cannot verbalize what he sees and goes so far as to say that "This Presence remains perceptible only as long as it is not verbalized." (p. 133) He quotes Hui Neng as saying, 'The Meaning of Life is to see," and says that "life itself is its Meaning" and we all have to find that out for ourselves. (p. 130)
So let me try to answer my own question.
You may never get to see the myo of a thing in its entirety at any given time, nor know for sure what it is you see is in fact myo, but you can practice seeing as much as you can each time you try.
I think I can compare this to how I process literature. In order to be honest, one must strive for Truth, even if absolute Truth is not attainable. When I read or process information given to me in the form of some kind of text, I know I have to read between the lines and consider out of what context the author may be writing/thinking (akin to seeing/drawing, no?)
If the author isn't writing out of an honest intention to consider an idea as fully as "reasonable," then I am that much further removed from the essence of the idea the author had wanted to convey. I would like to say that all great works of literature are like koans and even minor works of literature for that matter, as one attempts to extract the essence of the mind of the author while he or she was writing, which varies from one moment of writing to another as -- I am tempted to say -- no one human being has a true and consistent essence.
To this, I can hear Franck re-appropriating a quote by the poet, Ryokan, who had said, "You say that my poems are poetry... Well, they are not and until you understand why they are not, you won't see their poetry." (p. 116)
I believe Franck was referring to how "poetry" has become symbolic of something "splendid," which can then get in the way of how receptive one is to what is actually being expressed; and in trying to understand Zen Drawing, you may be confronted with a similar problem.*
If you want to have drawn something beautifully, and if desperate enough, you can fool yourself into thinking it was drawn beautifully. The idea and one's opinion of it is malleable. But if you are intent on drawing something that resides outside of yourself, the source of what you're perceiving is much less malleable. Of course, what is important in Zen practice is not creating or even recording something beautiful. What is important is not beauty but accuracy in perception.
And here we come full circle.†
I can only assume that Franck has faith alone that every thing has a myo, and yet he describes the act of seeing myo very beautifully, "Seeing first hand... I know the sacred... I draw myo in the tangled weeds behind our house..." (p. 134)
Somebody who believes in the sacred presence of myo may simply say that one needs to be "still," while somebody who has learned about art and literature in the West might say one needs to be "receptive" and to be "open-minded." But as a skeptic, I find myself returning with the same rhetorical question, How can one ever know for sure that one is seeing myo? The scientist may even ask for objective proof, as though without a community of scientists, all of what one perceives could potentially be dismissed as a figment of one's imagination.
Maybe – to reconcile the skeptic with the one who wants to be more forgiving and trusting of human perception – it’s enough to speak broadly of Zen and think of it in layman’s terms as the sheer existence of what one is privileged to witness and capable of appreciating.
Franck describes seeing/drawing as “a meditation-in-action on That Which Matters.” (p. xii) However, thinking of Zen in terms of what “matters” may not get you very far, logically. ‡
For now, I’m afraid I’ll have to settle for an analogy to something we allow ourselves to accept in math: the area under a curve. We calculate only a close estimate, as accuracy is infinitely removed… or something along those lines... I really only remember the phrase, “as we approach infinity.” It’s been awhile, and I never studied math on a philosophical level... so in general, if we can allow for close estimates in math and settle for the idea that we at least are approaching the answer we seek, then we can think likewise in our search for myo.
It’s obviously not a perfect analogy, as the area under a curve has clearly defined parameters, and the parameters are numbers and not emotions, but what is similar in both quests for either answer is that while we strive to approach the answer, we are infinitely removed. Some phenomena, even those that are logic-based, defy being defined.
So, again, our parameters may differ drastically, but every quest must begin somewhere, as does one’s logic.
----------------------------------------
* Frank re-appropriates the quote and says, "You say this drawing is splendid. Well, it is not, and until you understand why it is not, you won't see how good it is." (p. 116)
† Edit: 12/15/17 -- And here we've come full circle used to be "And here lies a paradox." It's not an actual paradox. There's a problem (IE, there's no way of knowing what you are perceiving is being perceived accurately), but this isn't a paradox. You can in fact be perceiving something accurately even if you don't know if you are perceiving it accurately.
‡ I think, to reconcile Western thought with Eastern thought, we must go beyond the notion that anything “matters,” because in terms of Western thought, what “matters” could be defined as what is valuable, and it can only matter to somebody who has the capacity to see that it matters; IE, building a system of values is internal, thus you go inward, as opposed to focusing on something that is beyond yourself. For the Zenist, having something matter is inconsequential. If all are of one phenomenon and appreciated for one’s sheer existence, then all are of equal value. If all are of equal value, then value as a concept is nullified, as value is relative and can only be appreciated in relative terms.
Franck offers another interpretation: "the awakening to the intimate contact with the sanity of our core..." (p. 23)... which sounds very intense, but it's not. It's supposed to help you achieve harmony with everything else.
I bought this book when I was very young, with my allowance, at a B Dalton's bookstore... I think. I simply liked the pictures. You could say I liked his artistic style, but Franck, I imagine, would interrupt and emphasize, as he does in his book, that he focuses not on the final product, that which one can see as a particular "style," but on the work itself.
He explains how seeing/drawing is his way of practicing Zen:
"From D.T. Suzuki, I learned that every art has its mystery, its spiritual rhythm, its myo in Japanese. The myo is intimately related to all the arts. The true artist, the artist-within is the one who is really moved by the myo, the as-is-ness of things... When I draw a tuft of grass, a face, a crowd, I am confronting this as-is-ness of things... The appearance of things is the manifestation of the myo, of their Meaning…” (p. 25)
In short, Zen is about seeing and not producing. It is not a means to another end but an end in itself, and this suggests that an art student, who wants to be more skilled in one's ability to put down on paper the idea of something one sees, is missing the point of practicing Zen.
Now, brought up on Western ideas, I immediately have an alternative interpretation to what may actually be at the heart of Zen Drawing. When finding a thing's "myo" through drawing, I want to say that any essence of spirit one records is not intrinsic of the thing but a product of something within oneself, and feeling united with the thing is the feeling of catharsis from seeing what was within oneself. While within oneself, it can feel boundless, but outside of oneself, one can appreciate it more consciously. If it caused you anxiety, it becomes manageable. If it only had the potential to bring you joy as an idea, it becomes a tangible thing that inspires joy without you calling up the idea yourself.
Franck quotes a handful of poets and says the mentality of a poet writing poetry is similar to the mentality of a person seeing/drawing. In my experience, writing poetry was always a way of getting the most out of an idea which may or may not have had anything to do with my immediate surroundings.
When I would get inspired by some material object in front of me, I would often project my feelings for something else onto my view of the object. Moreover, I believe that words are ideas and whatever they represent they do so symbolically.
Drawing gets a little closer to an object but it too can only do so symbolically.
In terms of Western thought, we are in the subject of perception, and I think Franck agrees with as much when he says, “Art is what opens up the clogged pores of perception…” (p. 154)
Overall, the author’s goal seems to be the expression of truth and thus proposes that Zen Seeing offers something true about the object one is seeing. I believe this is misleading and what one can achieve is not truth but at best honesty.
We see an object in the context of time and place and time involves how one feels and thinks at a given moment. How do you know that what you’ve recorded is not the spirit of the object but one's own spirit or how one feels at the time about the object or the feelings for something else which one was projecting onto the object?
The burgeoning Zenist in myself may rebut this by simply saying the above is a pitfall of continuing to distinguish one’s ego and oneself from all else. (Zenists believe that one is all and all is one... which sounds a lot like the motto of The Three Muskateers... but I digress.) Let’s get back to the subject of art, because that is how Franck accesses the idea of Zen, for himself and for us. He says drawing "has been described as the art of leaving out. The critical point is, of course, what to leave out and why... This apple tree is my koan." (p. 121)
This idea of recording the essence of a thing has been influential in Western abstract art. I’m thinking of the Japanese prints decorating the walls of Monet's home in Giverny or the ones Vincent and Theo Van Gogh collected in the hundreds. I'm also thinking of Picasso's delineation of a cow... or was that Bauhaus' Klee or Kandinsky who drew the essence of a cow?
Franck says that "True drawing demands craftsmanship of the hand as it does visual intelligence of the eye." (p. 118)
But intelligence to see what exactly? How can one ever know for sure one is seeing myo?
Franck says that what he draws "confronts [him] with the mystery of Being." (p. 151) He concedes that he cannot verbalize what he sees and goes so far as to say that "This Presence remains perceptible only as long as it is not verbalized." (p. 133) He quotes Hui Neng as saying, 'The Meaning of Life is to see," and says that "life itself is its Meaning" and we all have to find that out for ourselves. (p. 130)
So let me try to answer my own question.
You may never get to see the myo of a thing in its entirety at any given time, nor know for sure what it is you see is in fact myo, but you can practice seeing as much as you can each time you try.
I think I can compare this to how I process literature. In order to be honest, one must strive for Truth, even if absolute Truth is not attainable. When I read or process information given to me in the form of some kind of text, I know I have to read between the lines and consider out of what context the author may be writing/thinking (akin to seeing/drawing, no?)
If the author isn't writing out of an honest intention to consider an idea as fully as "reasonable," then I am that much further removed from the essence of the idea the author had wanted to convey. I would like to say that all great works of literature are like koans and even minor works of literature for that matter, as one attempts to extract the essence of the mind of the author while he or she was writing, which varies from one moment of writing to another as -- I am tempted to say -- no one human being has a true and consistent essence.
To this, I can hear Franck re-appropriating a quote by the poet, Ryokan, who had said, "You say that my poems are poetry... Well, they are not and until you understand why they are not, you won't see their poetry." (p. 116)
I believe Franck was referring to how "poetry" has become symbolic of something "splendid," which can then get in the way of how receptive one is to what is actually being expressed; and in trying to understand Zen Drawing, you may be confronted with a similar problem.*
If you want to have drawn something beautifully, and if desperate enough, you can fool yourself into thinking it was drawn beautifully. The idea and one's opinion of it is malleable. But if you are intent on drawing something that resides outside of yourself, the source of what you're perceiving is much less malleable. Of course, what is important in Zen practice is not creating or even recording something beautiful. What is important is not beauty but accuracy in perception.
And here we come full circle.†
I can only assume that Franck has faith alone that every thing has a myo, and yet he describes the act of seeing myo very beautifully, "Seeing first hand... I know the sacred... I draw myo in the tangled weeds behind our house..." (p. 134)
Somebody who believes in the sacred presence of myo may simply say that one needs to be "still," while somebody who has learned about art and literature in the West might say one needs to be "receptive" and to be "open-minded." But as a skeptic, I find myself returning with the same rhetorical question, How can one ever know for sure that one is seeing myo? The scientist may even ask for objective proof, as though without a community of scientists, all of what one perceives could potentially be dismissed as a figment of one's imagination.
Maybe – to reconcile the skeptic with the one who wants to be more forgiving and trusting of human perception – it’s enough to speak broadly of Zen and think of it in layman’s terms as the sheer existence of what one is privileged to witness and capable of appreciating.
Franck describes seeing/drawing as “a meditation-in-action on That Which Matters.” (p. xii) However, thinking of Zen in terms of what “matters” may not get you very far, logically. ‡
For now, I’m afraid I’ll have to settle for an analogy to something we allow ourselves to accept in math: the area under a curve. We calculate only a close estimate, as accuracy is infinitely removed… or something along those lines... I really only remember the phrase, “as we approach infinity.” It’s been awhile, and I never studied math on a philosophical level... so in general, if we can allow for close estimates in math and settle for the idea that we at least are approaching the answer we seek, then we can think likewise in our search for myo.
It’s obviously not a perfect analogy, as the area under a curve has clearly defined parameters, and the parameters are numbers and not emotions, but what is similar in both quests for either answer is that while we strive to approach the answer, we are infinitely removed. Some phenomena, even those that are logic-based, defy being defined.
So, again, our parameters may differ drastically, but every quest must begin somewhere, as does one’s logic.
----------------------------------------
* Frank re-appropriates the quote and says, "You say this drawing is splendid. Well, it is not, and until you understand why it is not, you won't see how good it is." (p. 116)
† Edit: 12/15/17 -- And here we've come full circle used to be "And here lies a paradox." It's not an actual paradox. There's a problem (IE, there's no way of knowing what you are perceiving is being perceived accurately), but this isn't a paradox. You can in fact be perceiving something accurately even if you don't know if you are perceiving it accurately.
‡ I think, to reconcile Western thought with Eastern thought, we must go beyond the notion that anything “matters,” because in terms of Western thought, what “matters” could be defined as what is valuable, and it can only matter to somebody who has the capacity to see that it matters; IE, building a system of values is internal, thus you go inward, as opposed to focusing on something that is beyond yourself. For the Zenist, having something matter is inconsequential. If all are of one phenomenon and appreciated for one’s sheer existence, then all are of equal value. If all are of equal value, then value as a concept is nullified, as value is relative and can only be appreciated in relative terms.
May 21, 2018
Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing came to my attention in 2013, already a 20-year-old book. Since then I’ve read it a few times and it continues to speak to me. I recommend it to you, especially the travellers and writers among us.
Like Franck, I cannot sit and meditate. I fail to clear my mind of the dribble that pushes its way into any space and silence. Yet, when I sit to sketch, everything disappears except the object of my attention. I slip into Zen-state where an hour or two passes as if it was a moment. Franck explains this magic as he walks readers along the path from his early days of gallery shows to his gradual movement into drawing and eventually to the transcendent moment of the unification between seeing-drawing and the experience of oneness. But I am more writer than sketcher – more years of practice – so besides the sketching advice, I’m taken with the writing advice he offers.
"Bashō, the father of haiku, warned his students: “Jot down your haiku before the heat of perception cools!”
And this is the way Franck suggests we draw. See the object, enter it through the pen, and experience oneness with it. He compares this experience with the fleeting, but timeless, haiku:
"An authentic haiku must, in one breath, grasp the joy as it flies, the tear as it trickles down the cheek. In its seventeen syllables a haiku must catch the unsayable, the mystery of being and non-being: timeless mini-satori in fleeting time:
This dewdrop universe
Just a dewdrop
And yet,
And yet …
Issa"
This is what the sketcher strives to achieve: the quick rendering and the immediacy of becoming other; the Zen moment (whether it passes in mere seconds or whether it stays with you minutes or more).
A final thought on haiku and drawing: “Haiku transmit neither an idea nor a philosophy; they transmit pure experience into a minimum of words that grasp a moment of grace, be it joyous or heartrending.” When I facilitate writing workshops, this finding the essence of experience is what participants are encouraged to discover through their stories.
One of the reasons I’m back at sketching after a bit of a hiatus is to really see what’s before me when I travel. Like Franck,
"… I entrust my bones again and again to flying contraptions to circle the globe. I can’t help belonging to this generation of the restless, the globetrotters, the astronauts, obsessed with seeking, pursuing salvation elsewhere, as if the black-eyed Susans in Provence were more black-eyed than the ones in my backyard."
He ventures at some length to explain why taking photographs is less apt to allow us into a culture, for example (and can actually be intrusive and alienating) than drawing. In addition, with photography, the Zen experience is more elusive and, if it is present at all, passes within the nanosecond release of the shutter and, with rare exception, fails to capture the essential essence of the subject/experience. Nevertheless, I’ll continue to photograph my travels, but I’ll add to those images the pleasure of sitting in parks, standing in doorways or on a rock by the ocean with pen, blank journal page, and a box of watercolours. To give you two representative examples, recently in both Morocco and in Mexico, people shied away from the camera but when I got the sketchbook out, people came over to peek and to talk about the process.
Discovering the essence of the object, its authenticity, and its oneness in a Zen sense, is what painters and sketchers seek. It is what I seek in my humble, clumsy and beginner’s way. It enhances travel experiences and the memories that follow.
Like Franck, I cannot sit and meditate. I fail to clear my mind of the dribble that pushes its way into any space and silence. Yet, when I sit to sketch, everything disappears except the object of my attention. I slip into Zen-state where an hour or two passes as if it was a moment. Franck explains this magic as he walks readers along the path from his early days of gallery shows to his gradual movement into drawing and eventually to the transcendent moment of the unification between seeing-drawing and the experience of oneness. But I am more writer than sketcher – more years of practice – so besides the sketching advice, I’m taken with the writing advice he offers.
"Bashō, the father of haiku, warned his students: “Jot down your haiku before the heat of perception cools!”
And this is the way Franck suggests we draw. See the object, enter it through the pen, and experience oneness with it. He compares this experience with the fleeting, but timeless, haiku:
"An authentic haiku must, in one breath, grasp the joy as it flies, the tear as it trickles down the cheek. In its seventeen syllables a haiku must catch the unsayable, the mystery of being and non-being: timeless mini-satori in fleeting time:
This dewdrop universe
Just a dewdrop
And yet,
And yet …
Issa"
This is what the sketcher strives to achieve: the quick rendering and the immediacy of becoming other; the Zen moment (whether it passes in mere seconds or whether it stays with you minutes or more).
A final thought on haiku and drawing: “Haiku transmit neither an idea nor a philosophy; they transmit pure experience into a minimum of words that grasp a moment of grace, be it joyous or heartrending.” When I facilitate writing workshops, this finding the essence of experience is what participants are encouraged to discover through their stories.
One of the reasons I’m back at sketching after a bit of a hiatus is to really see what’s before me when I travel. Like Franck,
"… I entrust my bones again and again to flying contraptions to circle the globe. I can’t help belonging to this generation of the restless, the globetrotters, the astronauts, obsessed with seeking, pursuing salvation elsewhere, as if the black-eyed Susans in Provence were more black-eyed than the ones in my backyard."
He ventures at some length to explain why taking photographs is less apt to allow us into a culture, for example (and can actually be intrusive and alienating) than drawing. In addition, with photography, the Zen experience is more elusive and, if it is present at all, passes within the nanosecond release of the shutter and, with rare exception, fails to capture the essential essence of the subject/experience. Nevertheless, I’ll continue to photograph my travels, but I’ll add to those images the pleasure of sitting in parks, standing in doorways or on a rock by the ocean with pen, blank journal page, and a box of watercolours. To give you two representative examples, recently in both Morocco and in Mexico, people shied away from the camera but when I got the sketchbook out, people came over to peek and to talk about the process.
Discovering the essence of the object, its authenticity, and its oneness in a Zen sense, is what painters and sketchers seek. It is what I seek in my humble, clumsy and beginner’s way. It enhances travel experiences and the memories that follow.
May 21, 2017
This book is not about drawing. It's subject is much deeper. How to be? Inside the pages is no formula but encouragement to see. We spend so much of our time looking at the world, yet we rarely take time to see. When we allow ourselves the time to slow and open to what is really before us we can't help but become part of it, or the world becomes part of us. To have this kind of approach to the world would of course change the way one draws, but it also changes the way we interact and worship, if you will, the world around us. This is a book I will return to again and again for reminders.
September 5, 2025
I really wanted to like this book. I have long tried to maintain a Zen outlook, and have recently taken up drawing in a more serious way. As I started drawing daily, I decided to dust this book off and finally read it. After years of sitting on my shelf, the stars were aligned. I was ready for insights on how to draw better and to be more Zen. I was an open vessel.
I got about 1/3 of the way through and didn't find any help on being a better illustrator.
The author is very sincere without an ounce of pretension. For me, there just isn't enough for a whole book. It's very repetitive and often quite dull, with a lot of filler. Though the drawings are nice. Nice, but nothing I wanted to take a picture of.
Ironically while giving this book a less than stellar review, I do intend to act as the author intended. I plan to continue drawing every day, not just because practice is how one gets better, but as a purposeful act of stillness and active meditation. Maybe that's not irony, just Zen, and maybe if I finished reading it I'd know.
I'm going drop this off at the local Little Free Library. Maybe it can help someone else on their Way.
LATER THOUGHTS
Before dropping this off , I gave it another look. I didn't want to be too hasty. I paged through the chapters I didn't read which reconfirmed my decision to bail.
Also I have been coming back to the author's statement that he didn't like his works to be called sketches. He didn't sketch, he drew. The more I thought on that, I realized while I appreciated a lot of his work, I didn't love it. There was no fun, no joy. It was just autopilot, and that's not really art. It's something, but it's not really art.
ABOUT MY COPY
Before the Web and eReaders made paper fairly obsolete for me, I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club, sort of a Columbia House deal. If you played those clubs right, you could get a lot of content for little cost. Which is why Columbia House went bust. But that's another story.
One of the QPB free bonuses was a smallish unlined notebook, which I held onto for years unused. As I got serious about drawing every day, I was ready to have a real sketch book. That notebook was perfect. Which got me thinking about QBC and the books I got through them. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing was one of them.
I got about 1/3 of the way through and didn't find any help on being a better illustrator.
The author is very sincere without an ounce of pretension. For me, there just isn't enough for a whole book. It's very repetitive and often quite dull, with a lot of filler. Though the drawings are nice. Nice, but nothing I wanted to take a picture of.
Ironically while giving this book a less than stellar review, I do intend to act as the author intended. I plan to continue drawing every day, not just because practice is how one gets better, but as a purposeful act of stillness and active meditation. Maybe that's not irony, just Zen, and maybe if I finished reading it I'd know.
I'm going drop this off at the local Little Free Library. Maybe it can help someone else on their Way.
LATER THOUGHTS
Before dropping this off , I gave it another look. I didn't want to be too hasty. I paged through the chapters I didn't read which reconfirmed my decision to bail.
Also I have been coming back to the author's statement that he didn't like his works to be called sketches. He didn't sketch, he drew. The more I thought on that, I realized while I appreciated a lot of his work, I didn't love it. There was no fun, no joy. It was just autopilot, and that's not really art. It's something, but it's not really art.
ABOUT MY COPY
Before the Web and eReaders made paper fairly obsolete for me, I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club, sort of a Columbia House deal. If you played those clubs right, you could get a lot of content for little cost. Which is why Columbia House went bust. But that's another story.
One of the QPB free bonuses was a smallish unlined notebook, which I held onto for years unused. As I got serious about drawing every day, I was ready to have a real sketch book. That notebook was perfect. Which got me thinking about QBC and the books I got through them. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing was one of them.
February 10, 2018
This is no ordinary drawing instruction book. Mr. Frank talks about the all-important difference between looking and actually seeing, and what goes on in the mind and body when the act of drawing takes place. It is very difficult to put such things into words, and he does it so well. The author's own drawings grace every page, and perfectly illustrate the concepts presented in the text.
July 23, 2020
Exceptional meditation on how to really see the world around you. this book helped to strengthen my poetry writing as well.
October 3, 2020
I enjoyed the sketches, but truthfully it didn't inspire me to pick up the pen.
November 5, 2020
Franck is a renewed favorite. I was obsessed with a book of his I have had for 20 years and just picked this one up and read it in full.
September 24, 2023
Another Taoist gem I’ve stored on my bookshelf too long. It deserved another read. “Splendor! Nothing is commonplace. All is bringing with the Splendor- without Why.”
February 18, 2025
Interesting and it sparked a few ideas, but not really something to be learned from a book.
May 18, 2023
I really wanted to like this book. I have long tried to maintain a Zen outlook, and have recently taken up drawing in a more serious way. As I started drawing daily, I decided to dust this book off and finally read it. After years of sitting on my shelf, the stars were aligned. I was ready for insights on how to draw better and to be more Zen. I was an open vessel.
I got about 1/3 of the way through and didn't find any help on being a better illustrator.
The author is very sincere without an ounce of pretension. For me, there just isn't enough for a whole book. It's very repetitive and often quite dull, with a lot of filler. Though the drawings are nice. Nice, but nothing I wanted to take a picture of.
Ironically while giving this book a less than stellar review, I do intend to act as the author intended. I plan to continue drawing every day, not just because practice is how one gets better, but as a purposeful act of stillness and active meditation. Maybe that's not irony, just Zen, and maybe if I finished reading it I'd know.
I'm going drop this off at the local Little Free Library. Maybe it can help someone else on their Way.
LATER THOUGHTS
Before dropping this off , I gave it another look. I didn't want to be too hasty. I paged through the chapters I didn't read which reconfirmed my decision to bail.
Also I have been coming back to the author's statement that he didn't like his works to be called sketches. He didn't sketch, he drew. The more I thought on that, I realized while I appreciated a lot of his work, I didn't love it. There was no fun, no joy. It was just autopilot, and that's not really art. It's something, but it's not really art.
ABOUT MY COPY
Before the Web and eReaders made paper fairly obsolete for me, I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club, sort of a Columbia House deal. If you played those clubs right, you could get a lot of content for little cost. Which is why Columbia House went bust. But that's another story.
One of the QPB free bonuses was a smallish unlined notebook, which I held onto for years unused. As I got serious about drawing every day, I was ready to have a real sketch book. That notebook was perfect. Which got me thinking about QBC and the books I got through them. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing was one of them.
I got about 1/3 of the way through and didn't find any help on being a better illustrator.
The author is very sincere without an ounce of pretension. For me, there just isn't enough for a whole book. It's very repetitive and often quite dull, with a lot of filler. Though the drawings are nice. Nice, but nothing I wanted to take a picture of.
Ironically while giving this book a less than stellar review, I do intend to act as the author intended. I plan to continue drawing every day, not just because practice is how one gets better, but as a purposeful act of stillness and active meditation. Maybe that's not irony, just Zen, and maybe if I finished reading it I'd know.
I'm going drop this off at the local Little Free Library. Maybe it can help someone else on their Way.
LATER THOUGHTS
Before dropping this off , I gave it another look. I didn't want to be too hasty. I paged through the chapters I didn't read which reconfirmed my decision to bail.
Also I have been coming back to the author's statement that he didn't like his works to be called sketches. He didn't sketch, he drew. The more I thought on that, I realized while I appreciated a lot of his work, I didn't love it. There was no fun, no joy. It was just autopilot, and that's not really art. It's something, but it's not really art.
ABOUT MY COPY
Before the Web and eReaders made paper fairly obsolete for me, I was a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club, sort of a Columbia House deal. If you played those clubs right, you could get a lot of content for little cost. Which is why Columbia House went bust. But that's another story.
One of the QPB free bonuses was a smallish unlined notebook, which I held onto for years unused. As I got serious about drawing every day, I was ready to have a real sketch book. That notebook was perfect. Which got me thinking about QBC and the books I got through them. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing was one of them.
May 6, 2013
Interesting perspective - drawing as a form of meditation. Really enjoyed the first part of the book and drawings but then there seemed to be a lot of repetition. Tried the first drawing as seeing exercise without much success which was a little disappointing. It suggests it is not the finished product but the process which is important, but I can't seem to get away from liking the picture itself. Also he discourages shading and yet he does some shading in his sketches. None the less, very worthwhile and an enjoyable read.
February 13, 2013
I am not a Buddhist, but I have come to appreciate aspect of Zen in my nature study and and photography. This book, especially early on really was useful in giving me insight too a way of opening myself up.
October 4, 2013
I've had this book for some time and I always go back to it.
February 10, 2016
"The meaning of life is to see" - Hui Neng
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews