1 Week of Drawing,Trying to Connect With A Side of Me I Never Knew Existed
REINVENT SERIES: WEEK 2 - DRAWING/DOODLING CHALLENGE
Hi, my name is Chinwe, and I started this series — I call it REINVENT— a week ago to put down my phone and pick up something else and because I also was honestly bored. Last week it was a book, and this week it's also a book but a different kind of book—a drawing book with a pencil.
Now I can pride myself on knowing how to use a book and pen— hence, the birth of my newsletters, but I digress — but the only way I knew how was to write and not to draw. This is a creative side I've never explored —creating an image from lines and curves.
So when I was preparing for week 2 and I saw drawings/doodling as the next activity on the list, I was skeptical. What am I going to draw? I haven't even drawn in years. It was something I wanted to immediately skip, but I convinced myself not to. I am going to draw even if it's objectively terrible and horrible to look at. I'm was still going to do it.
I wanted to know, even if it’s for a few minutes, what it feels like to bring to life an image or a picture using an HB pencil, and so I started.
It didn't come naturally to me —it being the urge to pick up a pencil and actually draw, like I've said, because it's a side I haven't connected with. It also didn't help that this week was sent from hell—hell being school— and I was really busy, but I would give myself an A for effort.
I wanted to give up earlier on because I thought it was stupid, but a small voice kept urging me, and now seven days later I'm happy it did. Did I turn into a da Vinci along the way? No, not even in the slightest — I would be da Vinci as a 6-year-old child.
For the sake of my ego, I'm not attaching any drawings. I'm going to save us both the eyesore of an abomination, but take my word for it.
But it has allowed me to sit still for a moment, taking my surroundings in a new way; every curve, line, protruding part, and weird angle—taking everything in and trying my possible best to put that down into a 2D format on a white sheet of paper.
Week [2]: [Creative] – [Doodling/Drawing Challenge]
1. Intention for This Week:
Why am I doing this? What part of myself am I trying to awaken or connect with?
I’m doing this to connect with a side of me that I’ve never explored or given the chance to get to know. I feel like drawing is not something meant for me because I’m objectively bad at it, so I’ve set it aside as not being one of my (very few) talents. But I’m hoping to find something—anything at all—through drawing. Any place it leads me to, I’m happy to go, because this is somewhere I’ve never gone before.
3. Weekly Reflection Questions:
What did I learn about myself
It doesn’t matter if you’re bad at something—in fact, it’s perfectly okay to be bad. What matters is the effort you put into it and the thought that goes behind it. I thought I was bad at it, so I was skeptical to start—but I started. And it’s not about being good or bad, but about my intentional effort to put pen on paper. That’s what matters. So yeah, I might be bad at drawing, but I did try, and I did put my best pencil forward.
What surprised me during this activity?
Drawing is so calming. There’s nothing else on your mind—the only thing that matters in that moment is how to, as best as possible, put down what you see and express it fully on paper. It gives you that mind-body connection.
Did this awaken a part of me I’ve been neglecting?
I wouldn’t say it awakened anything, but I found it fun and interesting. It allowed me to see my environment more deeply—to notice the protruding parts, the weird angles, and the various contortions of objects around me. Because of that, I was able to draw better.
Would I continue this activity or try it again? Why or why not?
I would and I would be honest out of seven the I didn't do it just activity for for I will definitely carry it on, not for praise from anybody that just my own little bag drawing
What would I do differently if I did this again?
I would get better materials
Did this week feel aligned with intentionality?
I would rate my intentionality in this activity a three out of five because I didn’t intentionally show up the way I wanted to. There were times when it was beyond me—even if it was just to draw something small. Either I forgot, or even when I remembered, I couldn’t bring myself to find the strength to do the activity.
One sentence that sums up this week:
Challenging
P.S., you can get this exact template I use to stay accountable here for free.
Doing this challenge has allowed me to realize something about perfectionism. Perfectionism, I would say, kills joy; wanting to be perfect at something takes out the joy of enjoying it, of doing it, of trying it, because there's an expectation that you have placed on yourself typically for something that might not even be within your control. Doing something to me and showing up is so much better than not doing it because you are not perfect.
