I have to ask myself, ”why do I keep drawing the coloring sheets?” The pandemic, at least the shutdown part of it, is long over. Kids aren’t sitting at home needing something to do. I don’t get a ton of likes on them, so I am not getting a dopamine rush from them. But I took a few days off from drawing them a couple of months ago, and, to my surprise, missed the characters. Banjo, Pip, Sam and Mr. ML have become real to me. Spending 20 minutes a day (how long I take to draw them), is both therapeutic and a creative warmup for my day. I’ve done 1,000 of them since March of 2020 — and never once have the characters said a word.
Still, why do I keep at it?
I don’t want them to die.
I also feel like there is a children’s book in them. I have a basic outline for a story and in my spare time, I am going to do an origin story. All the characters had meaning to me in real life (well, except Mr. ML — he just hung around our old house). Banjo was our rescue Border Terrier. Pip was born on the day he died and is our current Border Terrier (she is 10 1/2 now). Sam was our one and only cat — and he weighed 26 lbs. pounds. Banjo is wise. Pip sees the world with joy and adventure. Sam is mischievous and a bit of a coward and Mr. ML has no idea he could eat the other three at any moment. He is an innocent soul.
It has been fun putting something out into the world for free. Eventually, I will make them pay the rent in some way — I need to eat, too. But it has been a wonderful ministry the past three years. And it has been good therapy for me
