“I was a fidgety and noisy child. All my school reports said that I couldn’t concentrate and that I was always distracting the rest of the class – I was a pain, by all accounts.
But when I drew, I was calm.
Drawing allowed me to get lost in a bubble, and I was suddenly quiet and content. At weekends, while all my friends were out playing football in the park, I went to lessons at the local art college. I could draw happily for hours and hours and not realize what the time was.
And nothing has changed, really. I’m the same today.
But, as the years go by, it becomes harder and harder to find those uninterrupted moments when you’re left alone to be in that headspace and lose yourself in drawing. I’m lucky if I get one hour a day when the phone isn’t ringing and there are no emails to answer.
But when I find that hour, nothing tops it.
It’s about reaching that moment of pure ecstasy when a drawing just happens. Where every move you make with your hand and every thought you have in your head grows in front of you without any mistakes; no rubbing out, starting again and getting frustrated. It’s like being in a trance – it’s fluid – and you almost don’t remember doing the picture.
Drawing is an escape from all the unnecessary things in life that get in the way of being free.”
– Jamie Hewlett, Artist and Filmmaker.
(Jamie Hewlett is the award-winning artist behind the world’s most popular cartoon band, The Gorillaz. Before he created The Gorillaz with his then-flatmate Damon Albarn, he created the seminal punk-rock comic Tank Girl. Original quote was pulled from a Dunhill.com ad in GQ magazine.)
Steven’s Notes:
Find that place each day where you can dive deep into passion. Even if you’re at work, throw yourself completely into it. What you may find is that ‘passion’ becomes a function of who you are vs. only what you’re doing at the time. While sometimes it may not be as invigorating as creating a new drawing, remember that you have the abilty to create a sort of art each day by simply focusing 100% of your efforts, intensity, and passion into what you’re doing at that moment.
Writing has always been the passion that fires me up and calms me down. It is the place where I lose myself and find myself.
However, I understand your point. Our intention and our attitude toward a task affects the outcome and how we feel about life.