In this guide

1. Choose one object you can see every day
2. Draw at the same time each day
3. Write down three things
4. Draw it once in different light
5. Take the best drawing onto a block

Most of us look at an object long enough to recognize it and no longer. This guide is about looking past that point. Drawing one thing at the same time each day for a week teaches you to separate what the object is from what the light is doing to it. Every other guide in this section builds on that skill.

Choose one object you can see every day

Pick something that will stay put for a week: a pair of scissors, a mug, a ball of twine, a plant on the windowsill. It should have at least one clear edge and one surface that catches the light.

Leave it where it is. Mark its position with a pencil line or a strip of tape, so you can put it back if someone uses it.

Draw at the same time each day

Choose a time you can keep, even if it is not the best light of the day. Consistency is the point. When the time stays fixed, any change you see comes from the weather and the season rather than the clock.

Write down three things

Beside each drawing, write one line for each of these:

• Outline. What is the simplest shape that contains the object?
• Light. Which side is lit, and are the shadow edges crisp or soft?
• Detail. One thing you had not noticed the day before.

Stop at ten minutes, even mid-line. One short drawing a day keeps the comparison honest.

Draw it once in different light

On day five or six, draw the object a second time at a different hour, or under a desk lamp after dark, and write the same three lines. Light from one side makes edges and texture easier to read. Seeing that on an object you now know well makes the difference obvious.

Take the best drawing onto a block

Lay the week’s drawings side by side and choose the clearest one, not the prettiest. Redraw its main lines on a print block with a marker, then fill in every area that should print solid. Whatever you leave bare is what gets cut away. The blocks at the top of this guide show the stage to aim for: the scene is on the wood and clear enough to work from.

A relief print comes out reversed, so trace any lettering backwards. Keep the sketchbook page with the block; the next guides refer back to both.

A sample note from a morning like this: “Axe head rusty but tight. Shears stiff at the pivot. Knife handle loose.” The last line is the one worth keeping. A loose handle is the fault most likely to cause an injury, and the easiest to forget by next time.

Next time: check the tools again after the work, before they go away, and note what changed.

In this guide

1. Keep one inbox
2. Use three folders, not thirty
3. Name files so they sort themselves
4. Review weekly for ten minutes
5. Test the library

A reference library fails when finding something takes longer than making it again. The fix is not new software. It is a few rules that you keep, in the same way a well-kept tool cabinet gives every tool a place you can see at a glance.

Keep one inbox

Everything you save goes into one folder called Inbox first: photographs, screenshots, scans of notebook pages. Never file at the moment of saving. That is when you are least able to choose well.

Use three folders, not thirty

Create three top-level folders that match how you look things up. For the guides on this site they are Objects, Places and Surfaces. If a fourth keeps suggesting itself for a month, add it then, not before.

Name files so they sort themselves

Use date, place and subject, separated by underscores: 2026-09-14_workbench_scissors.jpg. Putting the date first sorts everything in time order; plain words make search work on any system, with no tagging app to maintain.

Review weekly for ten minutes

Once a week, empty the Inbox. Rename, file, and delete anything you would not miss. If an item does not fit any folder, it probably does not belong in the library.

Test the library

Ask yourself for something specific, such as “soft light on stone”, and time the search. If it takes longer than ten seconds, change a folder or a file name rather than trying harder to remember.

In this guide

1. See everything at once
2. Make a fast first cut
3. Choose an opening
4. Pace the middle
5. Sleep on it

A sequence is not a list of your best photographs. It is an order in which each picture changes how you read the next. Twelve is a useful limit: enough for a beginning, a middle and an end, few enough to hold in your head.

See everything at once

Make small prints or a contact-sheet grid so every frame is visible together. Editing one image at a time hides the relationships between them, and relationships are what a sequence is made of. A desk under a lamp, with the prints propped where you can see them all, is enough.

Make a fast first cut

Remove anything blurred, duplicated or dull at first sight. Do not deliberate. Aim for about thirty frames, then stop for five minutes.

Choose an opening

The first photograph tells the viewer where they are. A wide frame usually works, because it establishes the place before you move closer.

Pace the middle

Alternate wide and close, busy and quiet. When two pictures say the same thing, keep the one that leads better into the next. Repeated shapes and materials can carry the eye from one frame to another.

Sleep on it

Leave the twelve overnight. The next day, replace the one you keep apologizing for. Write the final order in your notebook with the file names, so the sequence survives a crashed drive.

In this guide

1. Judge the size of the light source
2. Check a shadow edge
3. Look at what happens to texture
4. Choose, don’t fight

Hard and soft are not about how bright the light is. They describe how large the light source appears from where the subject sits. Once you can judge that, you can predict shadows before you see them.

Judge the size of the light source

On a clear day the sun is a small, distant point, so its light is hard. Under cloud the whole sky becomes the source, and the light turns soft. Under trees, leaves break the sky into many openings, which gives you something in between.

Check a shadow edge

Hold your hand a short distance above a pale surface. A crisp outline means hard light; a gradual fade means soft. It takes two seconds and is more reliable than guessing from the sky.

Look at what happens to texture

Hard light arriving from the side exaggerates texture: weathered wood, bark and stone look rougher. Soft light calms texture and shows shape through gentle changes in tone instead.

Choose, don’t fight

If the light is hard, look for subjects that benefit from strong shapes and clear outlines, such as a wooden signpost with lettered arms. If it is soft, move closer and draw or photograph surfaces. Write down which you chose and why; that sentence is the start of your own rules.

From arm’s length the lettering was sharp but the post was cut off, and there was no telling which way each arm pointed. From a few steps back the whole post fitted in, with every arm and its direction readable at once. From across the junction the post was small, but the paths it pointed to were visible.

For drawing, the middle distance won. For finding the place again, the far frame did. Label which is which when you file them.

In this guide

1. Photograph the whole, then the part
2. Hold the camera square
3. Pick one object and follow it
4. Label before you forget

A set of tools is patient. It stays still while you work out what makes each piece look the way it does, which makes it ideal reference for shape, proportion and how light falls across metal and wood. The same pictures double as an inventory.

Photograph the whole, then the part

Take one frame that shows everything together, even if it is not beautiful: the whole desk, or every tool in a row. It is the map for every detail you photograph afterwards.

Hold the camera square

Hold the camera parallel to the surface: directly above a table, or level with a wall of hooks. Angled shots make handles look shorter and blades wider than they are, which matters when you draw from the picture later.

Pick one object and follow it

Choose a single object, such as a pair of scissors, a print block or a ball of twine, and photograph it three times in different light or from different distances. Three frames of one thing teach more than thirty of everything.

Label before you forget

Name the files with the object and the view, for example print-blocks_pens_close.jpg, and file them under Objects, as described in the reference library guide.

In this guide

1. Describe, then delete
2. Add place and time
3. Add the one thing that matters
4. Read it aloud

Most captions repeat the picture: “a cabinet of tools”. The reader can already see that. A useful caption names what they cannot see.

Describe, then delete

Write a plain description of the photograph. Then delete every word the picture already makes obvious. What remains is often nothing, and that is the point: now you know what needs adding.

Add place and time

The photograph at the top of this guide shows an open cabinet of woodworking tools. It does not show whose cabinet it is, where it stands or when it was photographed. Those are exactly the facts a caption should add, and your field notes should already hold them.

Add the one thing that matters

What would a reader miss? Perhaps that every tool had just been sharpened, or that one space in the cabinet is always empty. One clause is enough.

Read it aloud

If the caption sounds like a label on a museum drawer, it is probably working. If it sounds like a greeting card, cut it back. Never add a fact you did not record.

In this guide

1. Put the lamp to one side
2. Notice the mixed half hour
3. Check color against white
4. Know when to stop

The end of the day changes the light on a desk faster than most people notice. For a while window light and lamplight mix; after that the lamp is all there is. This guide is a routine for that change.

Put the lamp to one side

Light from straight in front flattens a drawing and throws glare off paper and wet ink. Place the lamp on the side opposite your drawing hand, so your hand does not shade the line you are making, and low enough that the light rakes across the surface.

Notice the mixed half hour

While there is still daylight at the window, the two sources disagree: the window is cool, the lamp is warm. Colors judged in that half hour often look wrong the next morning. Use it for line work and leave color decisions for later.

Check color against white

Keep the scrap of white paper beside the work. If it looks yellow under the lamp, so will everything else. Judge color against the scrap rather than against your memory of daylight.

Know when to stop

Late-evening mistakes are predictable: lines drawn heavier than you meant, and dark areas that look lighter than they are. When you catch one, write it down and stop for the day. Look at the same work again in the morning and add a line about what changed.

In this guide

1. Say where, exactly
2. Say when
3. Say what you saw
4. Say why you stopped
5. Add one line at home

Notes written for yourself tend to assume you will remember. A year later you will not. Write every note as if it were for someone who has never been there.

Say where, exactly

Name the place and your position. If something has a name, use it: the junction, the shed, the second shelf of the cabinet. Writing it down saves a search later.

Say when

Date and time, always. Add the weather in three words or fewer: “clear, still, cold”.

Say what you saw

One sentence, using the three notes from the drawing journal: outline, light and one detail.

Say why you stopped

This is the line most people skip, and the one that matters most later. What made you look? A shape, a color, a sound, a memory. Write it plainly.

Add one line at home

The same evening, write the file names of any photographs next to the note. That single line connects your notebook to your reference library.