It’s strange how hard it is to notice something changing when you see it every day.
I think drawing is like that.
When I look at something I’m drawing today, I still see all the things I wish I had done differently. A line that isn’t quite right. An eye that’s a little crooked. Something I erased three times and somehow still didn’t fix.
That’s pretty normal around here.
But lately I’ve been thinking about something.
I spend so much time looking at what I’m making next that I don’t spend much time looking at what I’ve already made.
And there are a lot of them now.
Drawings. Characters. Stories.
Some worked.
Some definitely didn’t.
And quite a few probably deserve to stay safely hidden in a drawer.
But I kept them.
Even the bad ones.
Especially some of the bad ones.
And I’m glad I did, because I’ve finally realized those old drawings were doing something I couldn’t see while I was making them.
They were keeping a record.
A record of where I started.
What I struggled with.
What I tried.
What worked.
What didn’t.
And all those little changes that were too small for me to notice while they were happening.
The mistakes were easier to see than the progress
When I first started drawing again, I noticed everything that was wrong.
A shaky line.
A circle that wasn’t really a circle.
A drawing that looked nothing like the thing I thought I was drawing.
I kept waiting for the day when I would finally feel like I knew what I was doing.
That day never really came.
Even when the drawings started getting better, I simply found different things to be unhappy with.
The mistakes changed.
I didn’t really notice that I had.
When I look back now, there isn’t one drawing where everything suddenly changed.
There wasn’t a day when I finished something, leaned back, and thought, “Okay. Now I know how to draw.”
There wasn’t one drawing that changed everything.
There were just more drawings.
One became another.
Then another.
Every time I finished one, I had something I didn’t have before.
Another little piece of the record.
And eventually, all those little pieces started telling a story I couldn’t see while I was living it.
Drawing changed more than the paper
One thing I didn’t expect was how drawing would change the way I notice things.
If you’ve watched my videos, you’ve probably noticed that I like sketching ideas outside.
A park.
The backyard.
Beside a pond or a stream.
Anywhere I can sit for a while and look around.
I’m from the country, so some of that has always been in me. I’ve always liked trees, water, birds, animals, and quiet places.
But drawing made me pay attention differently.
Things I might once have walked past became ideas.
A bird standing in an odd way.
A turtle crossing a path.
A goose poking through the grass looking for breakfast.
One morning I watched a group of geese searching for something to eat.
And almost immediately my brain went somewhere else.
What if one little goose couldn’t find his breakfast?
That became a drawing.
Then a little story.
Then, of course, he found it.
Apparently it was a pretty good morning after all.
That is one of the things drawing has changed most.
I notice things now that I probably would have walked right past before.
The mistakes didn’t disappear
None of this means I stopped making bad drawings.
I still do.
I still erase something three times and somehow put it back almost exactly where it was.
I still draw a line and immediately wish I hadn’t.
I still start things over.
The difference is that those mistakes don’t feel quite as important anymore.
There is another blank page waiting.
One bad drawing isn’t the end of anything.
You make another one.
And then another.
That may be one of the biggest things I’ve learned.
Progress does not mean the mistakes disappear.
Sometimes progress simply means the mistakes stop scaring you.
Then I put two drawings beside each other
There is something strange about looking at an old drawing by itself.
I can still remember everything I saw wrong with it when I made it.
And when I look at something recent, I do the same thing.
I see what I would change.
What I would fix.
What I might do differently next time.
But when I put an old drawing beside a recent one, something happens.
The mistakes are still there.
But so is something else.
Progress.
Somewhere along the way, without really noticing it, I got better.
The video below tells the full story, with the drawings, mistakes, and little moments that helped me finally see the progress.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
Better.
And that one word matters to me.
The evidence turned out to be bigger than the drawings
Looking back, I don’t think the evidence is only that my drawings improved.
It is everything that happened because I kept drawing.
Hundreds of videos.
Characters that didn’t exist before.
Lost & Found Critters.
Brave Little Critters.
Prints.
Books.
Stories.
And somewhere along the way, I even started naming some of these little guys.
Walter.
Amy.
And now I’m starting to have a few favorites.
I want to take them with me.
Put them in different situations.
Give them little adventures.
See where they go.
That wasn’t part of some grand plan when I picked up a pencil again.
None of this was.
It happened because I continued.
And now there’s Bella
Lately I’ve started something a little different.
Her name is Bella.
Right now, she’s mostly just a beginning.
I’m going to work on her slowly over several episodes.
No rush.
No need to finish her all at once.
I want people to watch her gradually become whatever she is going to become.
And I think Bella belongs in this story because she reminds me that looking back is only half of it.
I’m still curious about what I might make next.
I thought the evidence would be in the finished drawings.
Some of it is.
But I think most of it is simply that I’m still here making them.
I didn’t plan any of this when I picked up a pencil again.
It happened because I kept going.
Even a comment from someone saying one of these little characters made them smile feels like part of the evidence.
Something that didn’t exist before now exists.
And for a moment, it mattered to someone.
That’s enough.
Keep the beginning
Maybe you’ve started something and you can’t see any progress yet.
Maybe what you’re making today looks nothing like what you hoped it would.
Maybe you’re tempted to hide it.
Throw it away.
Start over and pretend the first attempt never happened.
Keep it.
Keep the crooked lines.
Keep the bad attempts.
Keep the thing you’re tempted to throw away.
Someday you may need the evidence.
Because when you’re always looking toward whatever comes next, it can be surprisingly hard to see how far you’ve already traveled.
Don’t hide the beginning.
Someday it might show you just how far you’ve come.
Keep creating. ❤️