When people discover the Hand Drawn Project, they may assume I picked up a pencil because I wanted to become a great artist.
I didn’t.
I wasn’t dreaming about galleries.
I wasn’t trying to become a professional artist.
I wasn’t even sure I could still draw.
I picked up a pencil because I was looking for something I could keep doing.
But to explain how I got there, I have to go back a few years.
When Everything Changed
When I was 49, I almost died.
And when I finally came home, I looked at things a little differently.
Before that happened, I had always worked regular jobs. I went to work, did what I was supposed to do, collected a paycheck, and came back the next day.
There was comfort in that.
But after I came home, I knew I didn’t want to continue my job. And physically, I really couldn’t.
I didn’t want another position at the factory.
I didn’t want a promotion.
And I didn’t want to spend the next 20 years learning one more thing for someone else’s business.
I thought that part of my life was over.
I thought maybe I was done chasing the next thing.
And for a while, I actually believed it.
I was wrong.
I Did Something Completely Out of Character
What happened next was totally unexpected.
It started a chain reaction that would change my life all over again.
My wife and her sister owned a used bookstore. When her sister decided to move closer to her children, they asked if I would like to take her place.
I didn’t hesitate.
That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal.
For me, it was huge.
Before I almost died, I wasn’t a risk taker. Especially when it came to work.
I liked knowing there was a steady paycheck coming.
You worked your hours. You got paid.
Simple.
Quitting that and stepping into a business where what I made depended on how well we did was completely out of character for me.
I never imagined I would do anything like that.
But I did.
And suddenly, I had a lot to learn.
Inventory systems.
eBay.
Shopify.
Accounting.
Shipping.
Running a business.
All those things I had just told myself I was done learning.
And there I was, learning all over again.
Except this time, something felt different.
I wasn’t learning something for somebody else’s business.
I was helping build ours.
And somewhere along the way, I realized something that surprised me.
I still loved learning.
Maybe I Was Finally Done Learning
Eventually, I settled in.
The bookstore was running smoothly, and I still love it.
One of my favorite parts of owning a used bookstore is helping someone find a book they didn’t even know they were looking for.
Sometimes they come in looking for one thing and leave with something completely different.
There’s something fun about that.
After a while, I remember thinking:
Okay. Maybe now I’m finally done learning.
I had no idea curiosity wasn’t finished with me yet.
Then YouTube Happened
One night I watched someone showing themselves uploading a video.
I don’t remember what the video was about.
That wasn’t what caught my attention.
Instead, I found myself wondering:
How did they make that?
And there it was again.
Curiosity.
So I started figuring it out.
First came video editing.
Then cameras.
Microphones.
Lighting.
Final Cut Pro.
Thumbnails.
Websites.
There was always one more thing I didn’t know how to do.
And instead of bothering me, I discovered that I liked it.
Eventually, I started a gardening channel.
For a while, I loved it.
I was growing things, making videos and learning something new almost every day.
But over time, gardening became harder for me physically.
That left me with another question.
What Could I Still Create at 70?
I started wondering what I could create that I could keep doing for a long time.
Not for the next year.
Not for the next five years.
I wanted something I could still wake up excited to create when I was 70 or 80, if I’m lucky enough to get there.
I didn’t know what that was.
Then my brother suggested drawing.
Drawing?
I hadn’t seriously drawn in decades.
I certainly wasn’t sitting there thinking:
I’m going to become a great artist.
Nothing close to it.
I had a much smaller question.
Could I learn to do this again?
There was really only one way to find out.
I picked up a pencil.
And once again, I started learning.
One Blank Page at a Time
At first, the drawings looked exactly like you would expect drawings to look after someone hadn’t seriously drawn for decades.
I had shaky lines.
Things didn’t always look the way I imagined them in my head.
Sometimes I had to erase something and try again.
Sometimes I had to start over completely.
But something interesting happened.
I kept going.
One drawing became another.
Then another.
I learned colored pencils.
I learned markers.
I learned how to draw animals I had never tried before.
Sometimes I found myself researching strange little details just because I needed them for a drawing.
What do blue jay feet actually look like?
What color are beaver teeth?
How does a turtle’s shell connect to its body?
Suddenly I was learning again.
And I loved it.
The thing I thought I was finished with had followed me all the way to a blank piece of paper.
I Still Don't Want to Be a Great Artist
I still don’t wake up thinking I need to become a great artist.
That was never really the goal.
I want to create.
I want to tell little stories.
I want to keep getting a little better.
And most of all, I want to stay curious.
Because I’m starting to understand that curiosity has been behind almost every unexpected turn in this part of my life.
It took me into a bookstore.
Then into YouTube.
Then gardening.
Then cameras and editing.
And eventually, it brought me back to something I had left behind decades earlier.
Drawing.
I have no idea where it will take me next.
And maybe that’s the point.
Curiosity Doesn't Care How Old We Are
Maybe you’ve been telling yourself:
“I’m too old.”
“I missed my chance.”
“I’ve learned enough.”
“I wouldn't be any good at it.”
Maybe.
But I’m beginning to think curiosity doesn’t care how old we are.
It doesn’t ask whether we should have started 20 years ago.
It just puts a question in front of us:
I wonder if I could do that?
Sometimes that little question is enough.
You don’t have to know where it will lead.
You don’t have to become great at it.
You don’t even have to be good at it yet.
You just have to be curious enough to begin.
For me, it started again with one pencil and one blank page.
And I’m still learning where it goes from here.
Keep creating. ❤️