Years ago, before I had my first child, I took numerous art classes. I mostly worked with pencil and practiced sketching and drawing. Right after I had my first child, the pandemic hit, so just as my kiddo was hitting 4-5 months and I was feeling ready to emerge from our cocoon, everything in-person was cancelled.

I stopped drawing. It wasn’t a good excuse, because let’s face it—there are thousands of online classes and drawing is a solitary affair that can be done from anywhere. The in-person classes were very motivating to me though. Being told what to draw, and really, being given the time (by myself) to meditate on my drawing, was so fulfilling to me.

This was a project from my very first class. It is probably one of my best ones that I ever produced, but the reality of why it is so strong is that we spent four weeks on our capstone instead of two, as we did in future classes. Putting double the hours into something while make genuine efforts to be better at it simply produces a better result. This was a huge creative lesson for me that I still think about on a regular basis.

Trying to draw while surrounded by the mess of my life—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually—just overwhelmed me.

A year or two ago I tried to get back into drawing and was taking online classes that truly excited me. But I kept running into the issue that drawing was challenging for me. It was hard to level up my drawings without significant energy expenditure. And it was energy I did not seem to have or be able to maintain.

I longed to be one of those people who sketched everything around them, from pictures they had taken, to inspiring landscapes. But I simply wasn’t. I was too tired. And I already had a job—writing and running multiple businesses—that took up a lot of my creative energy. So even when something was fun to sketch, I didn’t feel like I should be spending my energy sketching. (Whether that is true or not, I still don’t know.)

One night after nursing I sat in bed and sketched this from a picture. It only took about 30 minutes, if that. It was fun, and I thought, “If I could do this every day, imagine where I’ll be in five years!” But I could not do it every day. Eventually, I had to accept that.

I learned a few things about my efforts to restart my hobby:

  1. You can usually make an amazing piece of art with time, once you have the foundations. I learned how to draw very quickly. My main struggle was and is to this day having the patience to sit down and draw. Drawing to produce anything of commercial quality simply requires putting in a ton of hours, which I don’t feel like I have right now.
  2. I could not maintain my writing schedule and practice drawing even 20-30 minutes a day. I tried several times. It was exhausting me. I ended up switching my hobby to LEGOs because it was also meditative without having to be creative. (Don’t get me wrong, you can be creative with LEGO, but you can also just follow the instructions. It feels a lot more like reading a book versus writing one, energetically.)
  3. It was okay that I failed. I had started lessons to become a commercial artist and incorporate more art into my work. I just…Couldn’t. I couldn’t do it all at once. But I know my skill is still there, and I know my progress is beautiful and incredible, and I know I will return someday…Just not while raising small children. In the meantime, I’m working more on my writing and building upon my already fairly extensive catalog of books.

So much of my illustrating efforts have actually been a huge failure. I’m not the artist I want to be. I’m not doing what I want with my art yet. And I have no idea when I will be doing so.

I drew this in 20-30 minutes on Procreate and still love it to this day. I made a special laser-cutter pin edition with my husband’s help. (He’s a maker and engineer so we have everything—3D printer, laser-cutter, electronics, woodworking shop, etc.)
Since we were running our first Kickstarter campaign, I also drew this one so that there was something unique that we could hand out at 20Books. Russell Nohelty (my business partner) ended up giving away all of these to people he met.

But it’s okay. My journey in becoming a visual artist has brought me back to a childhood love of building, and I am much happier having LEGOs as my hobby right now. I can see a future where I have the book catalog I want and can slow down a bit with my writing, where I have more time throughout the day and can spend time drawing and illustrating things, and where I also have time to build LEGOs and play with my LEGO city too.

I think this is such a part of being an adult…Figuring out how to handle all of your responsibility while also carving out the smallest bit of time for yourself. One of my biggest fears is dying too young, and my second biggest fear is reaching retirement age and not being able to retire. But my third biggest fear is reaching retirement age and having nothing I’m excited about. I feel like that third fear is handled, at least. I have so much I’m excited to occupy my time with, and I’m able to do quite a bit of it now, while also feeling so excited to have more time to do more of it later.

Some live for travel and adventure, but for me? My dream is a wraparound porch, enough sunlight for a garden, and lazy mornings sipping tea, reading, and creating. And I’m planting the seeds of that dream today.