WORKMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY • NEW YORK Copyright © 2012 by Austin Kleon Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Austin Kleon All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced— mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN 978-0-7611-6925-3 Design by Lidija Tomas Cover by Austin Kleon Workman books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use. Special editions or book excerpts also can be created to specification. For details, contact the Special Sales Director at the address below, or send an e-mail to [email protected]. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. 225 Varick Street New York, NY 10014-4381 www.workman.com Printed in the United States of America First printing March 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Boom— whenever Boom gets here iv v “Art is theft.” —Pablo Picasso vi “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.” —T. S. Eliot vii viii It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past. This book is me talking to a previous version of myself. These are things I’ve learned over almost a decade of trying to figure out how to make art, but a funny thing happened when I started sharing them with others—I realized that they aren’t just for artists. They’re for everyone. These ideas apply to anyone who’s trying to inject some creativity into their life and their work. (That should describe all of us.) In other words: This book is for you. Whoever you are, whatever you make. Let’s get started.