A line a day

Gosh, It’s been a hot minute since I last drew anything. I’ve been busy living my best and worst life, starring in real-life movies and dramas that I didn’t sign up for. I do hope life gives me a good paycheck for unwillingly participating.

Due to the lack of motivation, I completely stopped pushing myself to draw. With the sensitive state, my mind was in, I would only have dug up a dark grimy hole of anxiety and sunk right in. It made no difference if Photoshop was open in front of me or not. I’d sit there staring at a blank page of nothingness; I just did not have the desire to draw. Every time I came close to it I was fueled with negative thoughts.

Over time I began feeling guilty. I tried to keep myself productive through blogging. This happened to be a great distraction for my prosaic mood. As I could pick up my laptop and write wherever I wanted, the park being a great choice. I craved a change of environment. As the gap in days lengthened, I soon started to forget the small details of my last project. There were moments where I’d look over my final drawings, feeling both proud of making them and a sense of loss. Though I knew it would only be a matter of time before I started drawing again.

I scouted Google for posts on the lack of motivation. Primarily to see if others were facing this obstacle and how they were overcoming it. The first set of results displayed on Google were of websites ready to hand out their top ten tips on how to surmount the lack of motivation and detect the causes. I skimmed through a couple of sites, as helpful as they were, I wasn’t really interested in reading all the why’s and what to do’s. I knew I’d only pay attention to their advice for a day at most. Instead, I wanted to read about real-life experiences, as I find these more helpful, especially if I’m sharing the same plight. 

Over many weekends I began collecting images, creating a growing inspiration board. Gradually with ease, the feeling of excitement on starting new projects grew. Today, I willingly opened up Photoshop and drew a few lines. Which felt like a great achievement, one that I’m celebrating mentally, with a couple of pats on the back.

Though it is a few lines, I’m taking a step at a time. You can’t rush creativity.