Drawing from life. Drawing from life and from head. Drawing from head on paper avoiding drawing from life. Any of these practices have never been my cup of tea.

Drawing on tablets though. Drawing with stylus on screens. Drawing with mouse on computer. Drawing with pen tool and shapes. Those have given me a honey-like pleasure, a lucrative career, and a space where creativity feels easy. Easy? No. Right.

I like for the process to feel right. Because when it’s right, it’s also easy. And when it’s easy, the dopamine comes sooner. I need the dopamine present throughout the process of creation as it fuels me forward to the end goal. That grand idea I’m sketching, pen-tooling, and coloring towards. The one that I’m also, more often than not, getting paid for.

When the process feels right from the first stroke, it also acts as a guarantee that I’m going to finish in a beautiful place. That the wow effect is absolutely happening. That the client is going to be impressed.

For a safety-oriented person like me, this guarantee is important. As much as I’m unlearning to control everything everywhere at any time, I love this feeling of safety before I even start the sketch.

Drawing on paper is the opposite of safety. It’s an absolute disaster rooted in unpredictability, imperfection, broken perspectives, and lack of practice.

There’s no tapping to undo. Erasers make a mess. Hands get dirty. Brain gets angry. And most importantly, unless you tear a page out, you can be left with staring at the product of your own creation that looks sad and feels permanent. Not to say it ruins the sketchbook and gets you in this cruel place of turning the page despite its existence. Being ok with its existence. Oh man.

As a parent, I always tell my son that it’s ok to make mistakes. I make mistakes all the time (and then reopen Procreate and delete those little shits for good not to haunt me in my dreams in Sade’s voice).

I’m not even ashamed of my hypocrisy, but I am scared of facing the creative side of me that feels more paralyzing than creative. To feel like I’ve no idea what I’m doing. To have no control over the tidiness and “correctness” of the artwork at every step of the process.

To bomb and be ok with it. To feel like a fraud because in my head somehow if I’m good at creating in digital I’m automatically supposed to be good at creating on paper even if I never practice this skill ever. Like, what?! Who thinks that?

Apparently, a lot of folks. When I decided to start this year with exploring hands-on practices and take a break from my iPad, I discovered a huge pool of self-doubting artists agonizing about their sketchbooks the same way I was doing it the first three weeks.

Almost every urban sketcher and painter creating educational content online has a video on how to deal with bad art. How to meditate on it, learn from it and then forget about it. Big whoop.

One thing I’ve learnt about myself in this process is that even though I can become a goldfish in the best traditions of Ted Lasso, I can’t forget and move on to the next page immediately. At least, not in the same sketchbook.

I’ve found it helpful to have 2 or 3 at the same time. To make it make sense, I created a different purpose for each. The first sketchbook, the somewhat A5 sized perfection, is for everything. It started as a place for masterpieces, of course, but ended up transforming into a learning curve. Trials and errors. Mostly errors. And some masterpieces on the first 3 pages of it.

The second sketchbook is a tiny one. The one I take with me when I’m out and about. I never understood the purpose of baby sizes before, but it actually softens the blow. The smaller the size, the easier it is to draw anything.

It takes less lines, less time, it’s more controlled. It makes drawing from life particularly sweet. 20 minutes of charging a car can transform into 20 minutes of practice, and it might not even look horrible at the end. I recommend.

The third sketchbook is a bigger, A4 dude. I got it to learn the gouache and mix it with pastels, and accidentally ended up developing a new illustration style. Now, it’s my absolute happy place even on my worst days creatively, and I use it to only draw in that style. Exploring and pushing it forward. A chef’s kiss mwah.

The reason I started drawing in sketchbooks is not to become an amazing hands-on illustrator. If one day I get there naturally - great. If not - that’s fine, too. Not everyone needs to be great at everything.

What I actually wanted was to overcome my fear of paper and messy materials, get myself away from systems and styles I developed in my previous roles, and learn to slow down and notice things around.

Like, really notice. As much as drawing from life is a challenge for me still, it makes me feel like life is not always swishing by at a rocket speed. That I get to capture a moment or two, experience it by being and drawing in it, and finally feel like I’ve lived a little.

Before I went on my career break, I felt like I was locked in a box full of task mastering, packed schedules, and deadlines. Taking a breath felt expensive, unaffordable even.

The only indicator for time passing by I had was my son’s transformation from a baby to a toddler, to a beautiful boy he is now. It felt like living someone else’s life while mine existed in parallel. There was no slowing down, just acceleration.

That’s why even when I do suck, I still enjoy drawing. From life, from head. Drawing from head avoiding drawing from life and on paper. Any of these practices are giving me my life back.

Of course, they won’t bring back the time I’ve lost, but I want to be in it for the future. I want to not just play with my son but also sometimes draw the hot wheels crashing against my foot so that I can bring back that memory. I rewatch Ted Lasso for the 4th time and I draw the room around as I’m sitting and rewatching it alongside my husband. I draw the imaginary room I want to be sitting in one day when we finally decide on where “home” is.

I love all of it. I’m glad I started. And I hope to continue.