As a kid, I used to really like drawing.
I had a big brown sketchbook I would draw in all the time. I would draw mostly random things, but I would also draw these cute little stick figure comics. It was really fun just drawing whatever came to mind whenever I had a few minutes to spare.
I was never very good at it. I have dysgraphia, a learning disability that makes it hard for me to write, and it also makes it nearly impossible to draw clean lines. I was always kind of insecure about how my drawing would always turn out wobbly and lopsided, but I still kept drawing.
I don’t really know what changed, but eventually I just kind of… stopped. It was probably a combination of my self confidence being trashed during quarantine and constantly comparing myself to better artists my age. I kind of stopped drawing as much as I used to. I still doodled on occasion, but it wasn’t the same. Sometimes I missed the old days where I drew all the time, but the fear of my art not looking the way I imagined it in my head always stopped me from picking up my pencil.
But then, a friend of mine taught me about sketch lines, and showed me how a bunch of wispy pencil lines could create a smooth picture. I was skeptical, but he was also inexperienced, so I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to try it out. When I had some free time, I grabbed my pencil and a sheet of paper, and using those sketch lines, I drew a good circle.
It wasn’t a perfect circle, but it wasn’t a lopsided oval, and that was good enough for me.
And with the help of these sketch lines, I learned that I’m actually not half bad at drawing as long as I’ve got a reference in front of me. I’ll need to learn how to draw more from memory, but I can do that later once I’ve got a better grasp at anatomy and all that stuff.
So I don’t really care for now that it’s not in perfect proportion or if the hair doesn’t look the same as the reference. Now people can recognize who I’m trying to draw, and that’s nice. It’s nice that even if I’m only just starting and it’s messy and unrefined, people still like it and can see what I’m trying to do, so I’m not totally hopeless.
I’ll get better at anatomy and drawing from memory later. For now, I’m just going to keep drawing.
Because above all else, drawing is fun and fun is good. I hope I don’t forget that again.