It Came From Nothing

 

It came from nothing. 

The pumpkin sketch I drew today, just like this bird sketch I drew, came from nothing.

There was first a blank page. Midway through drawing the pumpkins, I felt a twinge of remorse over a line drawn wrong and the picture now not being nice anymore. But then my brain, rather miraculously, reminded me that before I put pen to paper and began making marks, there was nothing. So in that sense, at least now there was something for me to criticize when earlier there was naught. 

Yeah, for some reason that I have yet to figure out, I found that moment profound. I was instinctively critical of my creation - something I have been working consciously to change which is why my brain kicked in to tell me that I have a finished product at the minimum - but that realization that seconds ago the page was blank with zilch on it and now it had strokes and marks forming pumpkins, leaves, color, texture was deep. 

My analytical brain wants to intellectualize what I felt instead of leaving it be; I guess I find two lessons coming to the fore. One, effort produces results that alter nothingness and create ‘somethingness’ out of thin air. Two, the effort doesn’t have to be mastery. It could even have been random scratches in my sketchbook and I still would have altered the nothingness and created something. So, action, without worrying about perfection, is magical - the lesson I’ve finally arrived at. 

On that note - drawing - I am convinced that every person’s soul signature is to be found in their drawing. Their own unique brand of drawing. I’m not talking about technically refined drawings. It’s in whatever way the pencil works in your hand to produce whatever drawing it wants to is emblematic of your soul. It’s unique. 

This whole episode of reflection I had while sketching today has cemented the idea on my mind that your drawing is as unique to you as your fingerprints and it is also a picture of your soul. 

Continuing on the subject of drawing, I am at a stage in life that I find a lot of value in mimicking my toddler’s drawing process - free and unbothered. I made that pumpkin picture without a care whether the color was perfectly within lines. My leaves were however I wanted to draw them - not worrying about whether they looked like actual maple leaves. My little one sketched out a shape with some eyes and announced, “this is a lemur”, and I shook my head yes. Yes! Of course it is a lemur and of course my drawing is a pumpkin.