You Didn’t Lose Time: Getting Started As A Young Adult

I come from a family of crafters.

My grandmother is a quilter, my grandfather is a songwriter, my aunts are dancers, my mother is a photographer. Creativity is in my blood.

But I never would have considered myself an artist. Sure, I doodled in my notebooks and went way too hard on presentations for school, but that was all practical or goofy stuff.

I wasn’t an artist. And I didn’t really care to be.

My first major in college was biochemistry. Then English.

It took five switches for me to land on graphic design. Then I stepped into my first drawing class and everything changed.

We spent the first two weeks of drawing getting used to engaging with the paper like an artist. This meant drawing a LOT of straight lines - drawing straight lines from the shoulder or the elbow or the wrist, drawing straight lines while sitting or while standing, drawing page after page of straight lines.

It wasn’t art.

But as the class progressed, it started to change the way I see the world.

I realized that the images I hold in my brain are rarely accurate to reality.

Drawing created a peace in my mind that I had never encountered before. It was a way to shut out everything in my mind and simply focus on what is right before my eyes.

I can pinpoint the first time I felt like an artist.

For my final, I drew a temple of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. This big white building stood out against the landscape of my city and had always intrigued me. I loved how eye-catching it was, even from miles away.

So I took my sketchbook, sat on my car, and drew until dark, emphasizing the stark white building, incomprehensibly tall aside tiny shrubs.

This drawing isn’t very good. But it was the first time I was taking something I found wonderous and put it down on paper. It was the first time I was trying to evoke a feeling, not just present information. And that means something.

I was 20 when I became an artist. I didn’t grow up drawing. I wasn’t very skilled at the time.

But I jumped in head-first. And I’m so, so glad that I did. It just took starting.

Now, I’ve put together my first art book. It holds all of my favorite drawings I did on my iPad - five years of digital artwork. Some of it is good. Some of it is terrible. All of it is meaningful. It warms my heart to hold something like this in my hands.