She draws it.
I love to create my own fantasy foreign lands.
(Well, they’re not really foreign to me, I guess – they’re my fantasy worlds, after all.)
Anyway, there’s nothing more stimulating to me than mapping out a new place with its own unique culture. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.
This drawing is a reflection of one of the places I came up with. It’s so satisfying to see your world in a physical form. It feels so much more concrete now; and exciting!
It’s the scariest thing in the world, to put yourself out there – especially not your “best self.”
I find drawing myself very difficult. It’s also not something that I find as interesting as say, creating a fantasy creature or plant. So, I don’t do it often.
However, I do also enjoy forcing myself to do things I am uncomfortable with. And while I personally don’t think I look like the drawing, I see myself in it anyway, so I’m pleased with it.
It may be interesting that I recognize my hand more than my face in these drawings. Then again, how often do you look at your face? I constantly look at my hands. So this says something about me that I don’t even notice too much about myself.
So, why would I show something on my website that I am not too happy with? Because these sketches force me to confront myself, from the process of drawing to the viewing of it. Things run through my head like memories and personal philosophies. The obvious example: it made me think back to college when I took that one drawing class and did terribly – but gained further understanding of the things I did want to draw. Even now when I look at it, I think about how I see myself, and then how the world sees me. It’s deep stuff!
See? Even in mistake-riddled works, there is value. I say show it all.
Excuse me for the messiness of this pencil doodle and the difference in quality. I do not have a scanner where I am right now. It’s all part of what I am trying to portray, although it doesn’t quite seem professional. This was drawn in an emotional state and I wished to capture that.
Because of my general affect, it’s hard to see strong emotions from me. I naturally have a resting stone face and what looks like an easygoing demeanor. But inside I feel and think way too much. That’s why movies, books and songs can make me cry really easily. That’s also why some people question my ability to understand, or my intelligence. Believe me, I understand what’s going on. I am merely unable to react until it becomes an explosion.
When I draw or doodle, I am desperately trying to show the things that I find difficult to emote. Here I am trying to show the effect even one hypercritical sentence can have on me.
To everyone who has trouble showing how they feel to others, I truly feel for you and send you all of the love that is kept from you as a result of how others misunderstand you. I understand you and I care about you.
My art is a victim of my tendency to rush. This artwork is an example of that. I am very happy with the composition and content, but I can see where taking my time would have made the gradient, lines, and shapes more of what I wanted them to be.
But honestly, I love this piece even with its imperfections. It was such an accomplishment once it felt finished. It’s a hopeful, loving, peaceful depiction of the universe. Between you and me, reader, I’m not the best at depicting the world as…positive. I see things I love about it, but I’m too nihilistic in general. This artwork reflects what good I do see.
I chose grayscale because I only wanted to use one coloured pencil and thought black–since it is sometimes explained as absorbing all colours*–was a good choice. I hope you think so too!
*I did my reading! Check out this link I found handy when I looked up, without shame, “is it true black absorbs all colours” 😉
Taking your time pays off. I loved drawing every tiny rectangle of this monster.
Here’s a little sci-fi for you! I felt like I was channeling a part of me that’s always wanted to draw comics. I don’t have a specific story I’m trying to tell, which I love. It’s just a little cryptic snapshot I came up with when I put the pen to paper.
Here’s a little something I’m posting because I haven’t been able to post much of anything anywhere for a little bit while my personal life has been very busy.
Enjoy!
Anyone here into learning about cults? I know it isn’t just me. I listen to podcasts, watch TV shows/documentaries, and read about cults in my spare time. I’ve never been in a cult, but I’ve been in a cult-like situation* so I find my hobby to be very cathartic (as well as fascinating).
Robert Jay Lifton is a psychologist and renowned writer who wrote about thought reform. He came up with 8 criteria that describe how someone may manipulate someone’s mind and change the way someone thinks. Mystical manipulation is one of these. The term refers to the way someone (such as a cult leader) will claim that coincidences and other events were in fact examples of their power. If I were to draw a picture of you perfectly with my eyes closed, and then claim that it was my God-given power of true sight that made it possible (not my skill) – that’s a clear example of mystical manipulation.
Gets the mind racing, right? I hope you enjoy my marker drawing, which I think ended up looking like a poster. It was a way for me to channel my impressions of this particularly powerful concept.
*It wasn’t a cult, and I’m okay. I don’t want to take away from people who really have been affected by a cult.
Here’s a collection of doodles I particularly love that came out of experimenting with new coloured pens. I’ve been making great use of the pens ever since!
I posted a tweet on my art twitter account that showed a part of this page some time ago. I tend to share doodles there more often, but I am sure to share complete doodle pages from my sketchbook here every now and again.
Khadeja Ali draws 