Under Construction

I haven't been drawing much.

Hi!

I haven’t been drawing much lately—most of this year so far, in fact. Ideas and inspirations are plenty, and I’m constantly taking notes, but not much has come out except for doodles in my journals and very rough comic drafts.

I went to Europe this summer. I spent a little over a month there, and I was very ready to draw some comics, maybe travel sketches. I packed sketchbooks and drawing pads, a collection of brush and ink pens, pencils, and a travel watercolor set—the one with forty-eight colors, not twenty-four!

Except the monthly Salamanders, the only thing I sort of “finished” in those weeks was this:

Pigeons in Athens are so big I call them chickens.

Pigeons in Athens were huge. They’re so very well-fed!

In any case, this is pretty much all I drew in Europe. My art supplies just traveled with me from one city to another and returned home untouched. I guess I’m happy they got to see a bit more of the world.

I really haven’t been drawing as much as I would like to, and I find it frustrating at times, but… I also feel like I’ve been somehow working on my art in these past months while not drawing.

I have two passions. Neither of which I have turned into a career yet, unfortunately, but those are the things I absolutely love and cannot live without, things that bring me joy and water me. Making art—drawing, writing, storytelling—is one of them.

The trip to Europe, and my time in Thailand in the first few months of this year, revolved around the other passion, which I’m not going into detail about now but will surely come up more at one point. It is an art I have been training in and practicing over the past nearly decade, and these past months, especially the ones in Europe, has been an intense time of learning and growing, offering more and taking up more responsibility.

Through this, something shifted. It feels as if the intensity of the time helped me dig deeper and shed of what I no longer needed. The shift allowed me to be more comfortable and myself in this work.

And, somehow, even though I was hardly drawing during these months, it seems to be bringing a similar shift in my relationship with my art. For some reason, again, even though I wasn’t actually drawing, I seem to feel more comfortable and myself with my art, too. Maybe it’s natural. When you grow a root deeper into one of your passions, you also grow one as deep into the other, because, perhaps, at the end of the day, all those things you love and are prompted to share come from the same place.

At least, that’s what it feels like to me.

Hence, the title of today’s post. I feel like I’ve been under construction for the past months, and not in the “renovating the kitchen” way but more in the “redoing the foundation all together” kind of way, too.

But the dust is settling, for now. I’m archiving old drawings to make more space on Procreate. I think I will start drawing more again soon.

Growing comes in cycles, and I know I’ve gone through these adjusting periods time and time again even in the few years since I started sharing my art. And time and time again, I’m so thankful to you all for sticking around and watching as I grow and change.

Before wrapping up, I’ll share a personal comic from a few weeks back. It was one happy evening!

I wish you many happy, Prosecco and grilled cheese (or whatever your treats are!) kind of evenings, too.

xo

Kana