Drawing/ painting as part of the recovery

Although I have never had proper drawing lessons, I always enjoy it since I was a kid and I found myself doing some random drawing every now and then. Lately, I found myself thinking about doing some art work a lot, and started picking up my sketchbook and pencil and started drawing some random objects at home.

I often found myself needing a lot of time to wind down at the end of the night, especially when I spent the evening at the dojo and ended the training with a sparring class. I always have to rush home, wash, eat, study, and catch up with daily admin. By the time I am in bed, it is normally past midnight (which is okay as I am a night owl), but often it would take me another hour to finally settled in bed, relax, and eventually fall asleep.

As I am now back at my martial arts training, I thought to myself, maybe I can use drawing to help to calm my brain down after training. How great would it be if I can calm my brain down sooner so I get more sleep to aid my recovery, and get to learn to draw and paint at the same time.

One decision I have made is to invest my drawing and painting time on digital art. I normally prefer pen and paper, but digital art will allow me to try out many different mediums without spending too much money on materials, free up storage space, and it also mean I can be very flexible on where and when I paint, which hopefully will help me to draw and paint more regularly. I own a 4 years old iPad, so I downloaded Procreate, which seem to be used by many recreational artists, and I treated myself to a £22 second hand Apple Pencil. I also bought myself a few beginners art books, started watching YouTube videos to learn how to use Procreate, and I will very slowly work through these materials while I experiment on my theory.

I cannot wait to share with you if drawing and painting help with my wind down and improve my sleep, and I will be sharing my artwork here in the gallery as I create them.