I was laid off in August of 2018 and suddenly found myself with a lot of extra time. For years I had worked towards my career goals. My personal and professional lives had become intertwined. Whether on vacation or late at night my phone and more importantly my email was never too far away. Any given task was to build towards a bigger and better tomorrow.
It would have been easy to fall into a depression. The job that I had dedicated my life to for over six years and I had envisioned working into my golden years no longer existed. Rather than let it defeat me, I took a minute and looked at my situation. I was still able to pay my bills for several months. I decided to take some time and assess my assets and liabilities.
I decided to get back to the core of who I was before I started my career. For the first time in over 20 years, I promised myself that I would draw every day. I would work to reignite the creative spark that had been beaten down over the past 15 years.
I had created a library of cartoon characters back in high school and decided to start with them. For the final 2 weeks of September I churned out 23 cartoons paying tribute to some of my favorite pop culture scenes.
They say write what you know. So rather than fuss over what to draw I started with what I was doing at the time. While lounging on my loveseat enjoying an egg sandwich it struck me that I should just use that as my first subject. I was watching Kristian Harloff talk to Clarke Wolfe on his 1:1 podcast. I simply inserted my main character, a mutt named Jake, into that scene.
It was far from a masterpiece, but it helped shake out the cobwebs. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. For the first time in a very long time, I was drawing. I would draw every day. What I was drawing was less important to me than the act of drawing. It helped my frame of mind. It gave me the space to weigh my options and understand what opportunities were in front of me before I started to dive in head first on my job search.