The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

The Perfect One-Liner

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Sketch by artist @shouxin13141

A minimalist drawing that inspires my lazy ass.

My excitement over this sketch is this: It’s packed with energy, loose in style, and created basically with one stroke. it’s probably a 10-second work. It’s also proof that simplicity can be a beautiful artistic statement. In one jittery marking, the artist here has captured “the essence of cat.”

If you’re considering a dive into some basic drawing, try this. Look at the image above, and see if you can create your own one-liner. It’s super satisfying, and just might tackle your fear. There is no perfect way to draw a cat, and you could consider it a sort of warm-up for other sketches. It’s easy, pressure-free and requires no art-making experience. Try this approach with a cool wide-tip marker or piece of charcoal, and find time to draw every day.

For more from this artist, check out images and videos on Instagram: @shouxin13141

How Can A 5-Year-Old Be My Muse?

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Call it Inspiration. Maybe creative spark. Whatever you call it, it is the lifeblood of an artist. It’s that magical sight or sound that motivates us, animates us — even when we are at a total loss for imaginative ideas. it’s then that the message from the Muse (if we are lucky enough to receive one) feels like hitting the lottery. Most artists never know when it will come around — and each time it does, they worry it will never come back. Wouldn’t it be comforting to know that there was something you could count on to trigger your creativity? I realized this past weekend, I have something just like that — and it always delivers. 

2024 marks the 35th year we’ve have been holding art workshops for children in South Los Angeles. It started when I was a TV reporter/anchor and my news director told me I was long overdue to give something back to the community. I’ve been doing it ever since. It feeds me in a way almost nothing else does. But I didn’t completely realize until this past weekend that these kids are my creative Muse. Watching the unbridled joy they bring to painting, and the fearlessness with which they do it, always helps me reconnect to that 7-year-old with the big box of crayons who begged her Mom for just 10 more minutes to color. 

During our Halloween workshop this weekend, I stumbled upon a little girl (pictured above) who blew my mind. She had seen a pair of my scissors with a white rope tied around the handles. She asked if she could use it. She didn’t need the scissors exactly, but wanted to untie the rope, and with it, fashion a set of long braids on her pumpkin head. Then, she sculpted hair toys out of red and green pipe cleaners. In a million years, I would not have thought of those moves. Both were original. She saw something no one else saw. And like an artist, she expressed her vision in her unique way.

When I got home, I was exhausted, I had all my art supplies to put away, and about a hundred things on my to-do list. But all I really wanted to do — was paint. Why? Simple. I’d just had a profound encounter with my unexpected Muse. 

A Boy Who Channels A Master — from the 50s

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(Pic #1) Laser-focused artist “Jaylen” splatters his way to a perfect abstraction. Hope’s Nest Halloween Workshop, Van Ness Recreation Center, South Los Angeles. 

He just started splashing paint around…

It caught my attention — especially since most kids are compelled to “stay within the lines” and to make art that “looks like something.” It’s just how most teachers steer them. They are often taught to copy — to draw with precision — the object in front of them.

Then there’s Jaylen. A young man who stopped by our Halloween Art Workshop in South L.A. and spun my head around. I asked if he knew about abstract expressionism and had he heard of Jackson Pollock. He said, “This IS Jackson Pollock.” I quickly shut my mouth, and silently thanked the teacher who took the time to introduce him to one of my fine art heroes.

Not only did he know one of the greatest painters in modern art, he knew at that moment, to be true to Pollock’s explosive style, he had way more splattering to do. He wasn’t finished. He had at least “one more coat” of black to apply before he could dry his thickening masterpiece in the sun.

His work would take longer to dry than any other child’s at his table, but he probably knew that Pollock would often have to wait a month for his paintings to cure.