If you're like me, then you probably feel energized after a brisk walk. It doesn't even have to be a long walk, just long enough to clear your head. If you walk fast enough, you might even feel the weight of daily responsibilities lighten. Someone once told me that doodling or drawing offers the same benefits. Drawing is like taking your mind for a walk.
My brother Eric Hanson, author and illustrator, writes a beautiful blog with insightful illustrations (see above). Hanson's artwork has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harper's, Rolling Stone, among other publications. Here's what Hanson says about drawing in a recent post:
"Drawings sometimes invent themselves. I put them down the way I take a message for my wife, assuming the information is self-explanatory. For instance, I don't know what the arrow means in this one, but I'm sure it makes perfect sense to you. Happy is a very fungible word, useful in any context. I could have put it next to a drawing of a frowning man and you would assume I meant it ironically. Actually, I drew this in an ironic mood. Maybe the arrow implies irony. Maybe irony is in the ear of the beholder."
The good news is you are never too young to start drawing. And in my highly opinionated opinion, drawing in school is okay--especially if the teacher is on board. My brother loved to draw and doodling might have been what kept him "productive" at school.
"To quiet my disruptive attempts at humor, my fourth-grade teacher moves my desk to the back of the classroom and asks me to draw portraits of the presidents, which she pins up above the blackboard, 1964," says Hanson in his book. "Miss Maggard is my first art director."
So take your mind for a walk today--and bring your kids along. Doodle away. No gym membership required.
A Book of Ages:
According to Vanity Fair, “This is your life! Obsessed with measur ing your self-worth by age? Gird your loins for Eric Hanson’s A Book of Ages (Harmony/ Crown). To wit: Steve Jobs co founded Apple at 21, and Edison dreamed up the light bulb at 32. Take heart, though — Grandma Moses didn’t show her first painting until 78.”
(Illustration above: er-h, Eric Hanson)
