At Sunshine Art School we believe drawing and painting are not primarily about accuracy or copying external reality, but about capturing something deeper.
Although grid methods can be helpful for beginners to achieve early accuracy, we choose not to use them as a regular teaching tool. The grid method is a tool for accurate copying. It trains the eye to replicate, but not to observe, interpret, or feel. We have found that grids can sometimes become a crutch, drawing the student away from direct observation and toward mechanical copying. Instead of learning “How do I see this form?”, the student can become focused on “How do I copy this square?”
We believe art is not primarily about producing an accurate reproduction of external reality, but about developing the whole human being through observation, feeling, and creative engagement. When a drawing is divided into a grid, the experience of the whole form can be lost, replaced by a more analytical and fragmented way of seeing.
It’s also very left-brained, breaking images into measurable parts and encouraging precision and analysis. While that might sound useful, it actually pulls one out of the imaginative, intuitive space. We sometimes observe that this approach can move the student “up into the head,” encouraging measurement, calculation, and analysis, rather than staying connected to a more feeling-based, intuitive relationship with the subject—what we might call “drawing from the heart.” The result can be work that feels stiff or disconnected from living perception. When we spend too much time measuring, aligning, and correcting, we can lose the joy, rhythm, and natural flow of creating.
At Sunshine Art School, our intention is to nurture confident, independent artists who can draw and paint directly from observation. We aim to support a way of seeing that is holistic, alive, and connected—where the student meets the subject as a whole, rather than breaking it into parts.
In this way, drawing and painting becomes more than copying. It becomes a pathway to deeper perception, inner development, and a more meaningful relationship with the world.