The Boy Who Learned to Look
Before Hokusai taught the world to see a wave differently, he had to learn to look at the world.
A Hokusai-inspired picture book about a boy who discovers that learning to draw begins with learning to look — and that every sketchbook needs one brave mark to begin.
Sample spreads
Buy the book
- Kindle eBook
- $4.99 — Amazon
- Paperback
- Coming soon
- Series
- Young Artist Inspirations, Book 1
- Reading age
- 4–9
Free companion practice
Seven Days of Looking
A free seven-day family looking practice, delivered by email — one small prompt each day for you and a young artist to look together, keep a sketchbook, and make the brave mark.
One email a day for seven days. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
About the illustrations
The illustrations in The Boy Who Learned to Look were made through a prompt-and-revision process that distilled twenty-five years of teaching and looking. Each image began as a specific instruction rooted in how I have taught young artists to see — composition, gesture, light, restraint — and was then reviewed, revised, and revised again until the picture matched the story it needed to tell.
The prompts did not replace artistic experience. They distilled it. The judgment about what to keep, what to redraw, and what to throw away is the same judgment I have used at a drawing table for a quarter of a century.
Some readers will decline AI-assisted illustration on principle. That is a fair position, and I respect it. I am publishing the process openly so that every reader can decide with full information, rather than discover it after the fact.