I started drawing again.
Nothing big. Just little bits, doodles in a sketch pad when I’m stuck on an idea, or my computer is loading too slow.
I’m glad I’m doing it. Drawing helps calm me down when technology, or life, frustrates me. Taking a pencil, drawing curves and circles, helps me focus.
I’ve been rereading Austin Kleon’s book, Steal Like an Artist, and I found this quote, which I loved the first time I read it, too:
It’s so important to have a hobby. A hobby is something creative that’s just for you. You don’t try to make money or get famous off it, you just do it because it makes you happy. A hobby is something that gives but doesn’t take.
I used to draw all the time, especially in high school. Doodles, my own cartoon characters, Sonic the Hedgehog fanart and my own invented Digimon. It was a fun thing to share with my friends, or to just spend an afternoon working on.
Then, I fell away from it. I’m not sure exactly when or how, but it just stopped being something that I did all the time. But picking up a pencil, doodling BMO or drawing circles on a page, I remember how much I miss it, and also how much I probably need it, for myself and for all my other art.
