The Habit of Seeing: Book One
A new book about attention, observation, and learning how to notice: Available to order here.
CIRCLE LINE PRESS
Books on drawing, creativity, and observation.
Circle Line Press publishes books about seeing, making, and thinking through art. Built on clarity and structure, each title reflects a deep respect for creative practice. An imprint of Circle Line Art School.
Tom McPherson is an artist and writer.
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The Habit of Seeing: Book One is a reflective exploration of attention, observation, and how we learn to see the world more clearly. Through short essays, it examines perception, presence, and the choices that shape how we notice what is in front of us. This book is not a how-to drawing guide and does not teach techniques or exercises; instead, it focuses on the inner conditions that make seeing possible. It is written for artists and non-artists alike, offering a slower, quieter approach to understanding vision and awareness.
The Habit of Seeing: Book One is available now. Click Here to order on Amazon.
The Habit of Drawing: Fast and Slow explores drawing as a daily practice that balances momentum with attention. It looks at how quick, instinctive drawing and slower, more deliberate observation work together to build confidence, skill, and creative momentum over time. This book is not a technical manual or a collection of step-by-step exercises; it is a guide to building a sustainable drawing habit, developing mindset, and learning to trust the process. It is about showing up regularly and allowing drawing to become part of how you think and work.
The Habit of Drawing: Fast and Slow is available now. Click Here to order on Amazon.
The Inclination: A Novel
The Inclination follows a small group of artists as they prepare a work whose precise nature remains undefined, yet quietly shapes every decision. Meetings are brief, routines deliberate, and progress measured through restraint rather than momentum.
Arnold, Michael, and Nancy move within a shared understanding, while an observant narrator remains at the edge of the group, attentive to language, gesture, and silence. Agreement is reached without emphasis, and authority settles without announcement.
As the work approaches readiness, effort gives way to care. Through precise, measured prose, The Inclination examines how people align themselves to a collective purpose, and how the smallest choices determine what is carried forward.
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Future Titles:
The Alignment: A Novel
Click Here to pre-order on Amazon.
A painter in London discovers that his work has stopped moving. Not through lack of talent, but through excess control. The structures he built to protect his practice have quietly become restraints.
A brief journey to New York reopens an unfinished relationship and exposes a deeper division between discipline and fear, structure and avoidance. What begins as a simple visit gradually reveals itself as a confrontation with authorship itself, with what it means to make work that does not retreat from its own consequences.
The Alignment is a restrained and deliberate novel about creative pressure, attention, and the unseen mechanics of artistic life. Moving through studios, streets, museums, and interior spaces, it traces a subtle but decisive shift: from observation to commitment, from explanation to action.
This is not a story about inspiration, success, or redemption. It is about alignment, the slow, exacting process of remaining present once structure is established, and of learning how to live with the mark that has been made.
The Gestural Line: A Novel
Click Here to pre-order on Amazon.
In a foreign city governed by discipline and quiet order, a young outsider enters a studio where gesture is structure, not performance. What begins as training becomes an initiation into a system where movement, language, and loyalty carry equal weight.
The Gestural Line is written in restrained, measured prose and examines how aesthetic discipline can sustain itself without visible force, and how subtle adjustments accumulate into transformation.
At its centre, the novel explores atmosphere, how space shapes behaviour, how silence can protect or control, and how freedom within a system may be provisional rather than absolute.
Perspective Drawing Made Easy: Buildings and Cities
Release Date: Summer 2026.
A practical guide to understanding and using perspective when drawing buildings and city spaces. The book breaks perspective down into clear visual ideas, showing how depth, space, and structure can be built from simple lines and shapes.
Rather than relying on formulas, the focus is on seeing, observation, and construction, helping you understand why perspective works and how to apply it with confidence. Designed for beginners and those returning to drawing, it provides a calm, step-by-step foundation for drawing believable interiors, streets, and architectural forms.