Drawing - One Zero One
Drawing 101
I was never much of an artist that knew how to draw. I’m still not “that kind of artist,” really. I have always enjoyed it, but I was never that good at it. When I was younger, I would draw all the time. Got lost in it for days. Growing up, I did not have many toys like other kids I knew (there were reasons), and with few toys, I had few choices to entertain myself. I chose to sit in my room, listen to the A.M. radio for hours (Mighty 690 in Orange County, Calif), and draw. It could be anything, anything that came to mind. Cars, trucks, flowers, waves, horses, unicorns, etc. You name it, I had tried to draw it.
My wife gifted me an iPad Pro (and pencil)
I had always intended to draw with my iPad. Not for professional purposes or for work, but for my own enjoyment. I sketched a few things but could not get used to the medium when I first got it. It seemed like such a different experience that I could not get used to. I got a few drawing apps (Procreate and Fresco) and fiddled around with them.
My “Urban Sketching” on iPad using Adobe Fresco
Urban sketching in the pandemic
As the pandemic settled in, I got my iPad out to pass the time. I went online and found a lot of people just like me who were taking up old hobbies too. Picking the pencils and watercolors back up or learning to knit, bake bread, write, or do other things. I came across Taria’s Urban Sketching channel on YouTube, and she mentioned taking an Ian Fennally Course on Urban Sketching. I went to check it out and looked at a few of his presentations, and I was soon mimicking his style to the best of my ability without taking the courses. Borrowing his reference images and basic style, I started to draw using the iPad and Adobe Fresco.
Inspired by https://www.ianfennelly.co.uk Ian Fennelly - https://www.urbansketchcourse.com
Drawing as a hobby
It never really occurred to me that drawing/painting was my lifelong hobby. It was just always a part of what I did and who I was. If you were to ask me to tell you what my hobbies were, I would have told you I didn’t have any other than my work. In recent years, I have read in multiple places that you SHOULD have a hobby. I have read about Winston Churchill’s paintings and book “Painting as a Pastime” and it is recommended in many other circles that having a hobby increases your mental health. More recently, I received an email from DailyStoic.com that detailed the benefits of having a hobby, and it reminded me to make note here. The Daily Stoic email listed the following bulletpoints about how having a hobby can reduce stress, calm your heart rate, help with work performance, lower blood pressure, lose weight, and the list goes on! Almost makes me feel like drawing could be my next “miracle drug.”
Hobbies and your health
In a study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, a team of psychologists had 115 participants wear heart monitors to test the real-time impact that leisure activities have on overall health and wellbeing. Not only did participants report feeling happier when engaged in their hobby, but their heart rates were lower and calming effects trickled into the rest of the day for several hours.
Another study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology looked at how non-work hobbies correlate with performance-related behaviors at work. With a group of 400 employees, those who make time for leisure activities experience direct and indirect improvement in work performance.
And in a study of 1,400 people published in the Psychosomatic Medicine Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, researchers looked at how hobbies are associated with not only psychological, but also physiological functioning. Hobbyists resulted with lower blood pressure, total cortisol, waist circumference, and body mass index, and perceptions of better physical function.
Get busy
So what are you waiting for? Get busy drawing or get busy dying! LOL! Draw motherf***er! Draw!!!! If I would have known that playing music, writing, reading, drawing, or painting could have helped me do all those things, I would probably have invested my time and money in more art supplies rather than all the other things I have purchased over the years. I still may not be all that good at it, but I certainly found something I enjoy doing that’s also good for me. It’s been a long time since that’s happened, believe me!
I printed the truck drawing onto watercolor paper and added it to it with “real” watercolor. Kind of a mixed medium piece. I really enjoyed taking this piece offline.
