A drawing exercise for mental health

Sketchbook as self care

Tough days can sneak up on you when you least expect them. You can’t change what happens, but there is a simple way to improve any day.

eat draw your vegetables

Find some pen and paper and an intricate object. You want something with a lot going on. One that’s abstract in its details. Leaves and foliage are a great choice, but so is a slice of sourdough bread or a screwed-up piece of paper. It doesn’t need to be anything special. There are things like this all over the place.

I grab a silverbeet¹ leaf from the garden, put it on the kitchen table and sit down to draw in my sketchbook. It’s a break from everything else that seems (and is) important. Loading dishwashers. Folding laundry. Sweeping floors. These things matter, but so does drawing.

To start, I trace the outside shape of the leaf. I’m right-handed, so it feels natural to start in the top left corner and go clockwise, but lefties may prefer the opposite. Either way, you do the same thing: Be the end of the pen. Follow the object with your eyes and match the movements with the pen. Focus on the details.

I draw with a pen because this is about the experience. I can keep my ego in check when I can’t erase. This drawing is about mark-making and looking; it is not about the picture. This is drawing the verb, not drawing the noun.

With the outside contour done, I look for corners, bumps, or other irregularities. These little features are bridges and gates to the inside of the object. Once I’m there, I keep going, discovering the shapes inside the leaf.

When I do this, my vision tunnels to the folds and veins of the leaf. It’s not a leaf anymore; it’s only shapes—curves and corners.

My brain is a spectator to this process. I’m all eyes and pen.

Stress and worry melt into a little puddle of ink, and the abstract marks start to form something on the page.

As I draw, time goes both fast and slow. I enter a strange flow state that is engaging and relaxing. There is nothing except the shapes I am looking at.

Most drawings are full of ego. I want them to be “good,” whatever that means, so I try my best to recover from any errors. The judging brain and the looking brain get all muddled together.

But in this drawing, I am trying to put the ego back in a box. I’m not going to judge.

Having looked at the shapes enough, I start looking at colours and tones. Slowly, I layer up watercolours, working from yellowish to blueish. Between each layer, I blast the page with a hot hairdryer, sealing the paint to the page.

I stop. Suddenly, I hear the sounds of the fridge running, the neighbours’ television, and the occasional car on the road. These noises were there the whole time I was drawing, but inside my head, everything was quiet.

I like what I drew, but I must stress to you (and remind my ego) that it’s not about the picture. This is about the process. What matters is what it does for my brain.

I feel like my mind has just done a big stretch and inhaled deeply. Drawing like this makes me feel better.

Drawing is always good for my mental health. And good mental health is good for drawing, too. Looking back at old sketchbooks, it’s clear that when I am happier, I draw more. And when I draw more, I am happier.

There is such a strong feedback loop between how I’m feeling and how much I’m drawing. Drawing the things around me is the most important way I take care of myself.

The trouble is, it feels like a luxury; on tough days, drawing can be the first thing to get cut. It’s always easier to do nothing than to draw. This leads to feeling worse. And when it’s been a while and I’m feeling pretty crap, it is really really hard to get out of that and start making art again.

But climbing out of the hole has to happen. A piece like this, all about the process, is the perfect way of unslumping myself. And it slows down my overthinking brain.

Next time your day turns to custard, grab a pen and paper, look slowly and carefully at one thing and unwind your brain, one mark at a time.

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1. That’s what we call it in New Zealand, but I think much of the world calls it “Swiss chard.”