Me and My Sketchpad

I can’t say when it really began, but at some point I became addicted to drawing my thoughts. Which, by the way, I’m a terrible artist, but that didn’t stop me. This addiction has led to hundreds of markers, pens, pencils, sketchpads, sketchwalls, computerized whiteboards, etc. 

The question is why?

1. I wanted to have my thoughts in a format that could be passed down through my family. We have a 175 yr. Old family Bible. It changed my whole perspective. Knowing some will disagree, but just know your grandkids aren’t going to sit down and flip through your outdated computer someday. However, they will flip through your personalized journals and sketchpads. 

How do we know? How many of us have taken VHS tapes and transitioned them to the Cloud? (Great business! Not knocking it!) But, not a large percentage. 

1. I’ll think about something, see, read, or hear something, and it triggers a waterfall of thoughts. If I tried to type or write them all, I’d lose them. Drawing weird little pictures reminds me to go back to that place in my mind, and emotions, drawing out other words that are triggered by the first.

2. Then I begin to draw different color lines between the thoughts to begin connecting the dots. Each color is coded to spark a certain cadence in my processing. No one else might see the story yet, but in my brain, it’s there!

3. There are times I’ll stop at that point. Formulating the chronological order of the dots in my mind, to be able to tell the “story” from just glancing at the color of that area of the sketch.

4. Next, I'll highlight the overarching thought, use a different highlighter to indicate an opening catch / thought, that will lead me to the overarching thought, then will bring me back to the opening thought as the closing thought too. Tying everything together. 

5. If I am reading scripture, I’ll look up each word in the Greek / Hebrew and draw out its original meaning. Afterwards I’ll write the passage in my own words, for my own devotion. It helps me apply things to my life, and remember the thought. 

6. When praying for someone, I’ll pray, begin sketching, then turning that into encouragement that someone might be waiting for. 

7. Remember the goofy stuff! Someone asked me, “Do you have to talk to everyone?” Yes. The purpose is to get a snippet of their life, so that I can encourage their day, and remember them in the future. I’ll sketch something small in a pocket size sketchpad, with their name, then continue to build the relational equity through consistency of encouragement, fun, and asking them about something we chatted about last time.

8. I need to improve on this again! I love sketching, writing, and leaving random notes for my wife, our kids, and now grandkids. Our daughter has them framed as art, wallet versions, car versions, huge post it note versions, etc. Robin used to wake up to a unique one every morning. The boys nicknames I’d get in trouble for mentioning here. 

9. Like it or not, the one consistent throughout our lives is paper! I am all for using technology too, but first make it personal, as something that can be passed down for generations.

Lastly, there are a lot worse addictions to have in life. Go get a sketchpad, some colors, and give this one a try. I think you’ll find it’s encouraging, relaxing, resets your emotion and thinking, and the list goes on. One habit I have at the same time is listening to the genre of music that best represents where my thoughts are at, and where I know they need to go. (If I accidentally leave it playing through my study, it can really freak out our kids with what they might hear. Then I have to promise I’m not teaching their babies that music.)