My Beginnings
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My Beginnings *
Around 2021-2022, I found myself meeting with my therapy clients exclusively through telehealth due to the ongoing danger of COVID. I’d just finished grad school and I was really burnt out. I later learned to attribute that burnout to going through public school, two bachelor’s degrees, and grad school with undiagnosed ADHD, but that understanding came later.
It was really hard for me to stay focused and engaged staring at a screen for 6-8 hours a day, so I took to “telehealth doodling.” I thought it was quirky, so I started posting them to Facebook as a “here’s how I kept myself focused today!” kind of thing. I was surprised when my posts got positive feedback—a lot of folks expressed things like “I didn’t know you could draw!” and every so often someone would ask if they could buy one of my telehealth doodles. For a while, I really didn’t know what to do with that feedback but, it was flattering and encouraged me to keep going. For most of my “telehealth doodle” stage I used either notebook paper or a small journal, and either a ballpoint pen or a pilot pen because those were the materials I always had at my desk!
Original art by Clare Bowen | https://clarebowen.co.uk/2016/04/01/my-hand-pen-ink/
Original art by Ana Catalina Díaz Riveros | https://www.flickr.com/photos/anamandarina/13050964033/in/pool-brandydecerezas/
Original art by Noosha Zuberi | https://www.instagram.com/p/CPaT-MbNbPS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=bzAwN2FuZng5azE1
Erika Lancaster | https://www.erikalancaster.com/art-blog/shading-a-hand-using-pen-and-ink and Kara Hammond | https://karahammondart.com/2021/03/05/hand-studies-in-ink/
So, I kept at it. My friends and family continued to encourage me and they reiterated that they thought I had some raw talent. A few wonderful and kind friends sent me my very first sketchbook, my first set of Micron pens, and a set of calligraphy pens. Around that time I also started my Instagram account Sketches by Saron to post all of my doodles because after a while, they became daily posts, and I felt bad posting all of it to my personal feed (in hindsight, that may have been a silly way to feel).
I look back on this part of my art journey with a lot of fondness, and I’m sharing it publicly because I love being able to have a timeline of sorts—here’s where I started and here’s what my art looked like when I started out.
If I have any regret about it, it’s that I didn’t think to credit the original artists for a lot of those pieces. I used other people’s work as inspiration, and, especially in the very beginning, I tried to directly copy pieces that I liked.
Original art by bigredshark on deviant art | https://www.deviantart.com/bigredsharks/art/mushroom-ink-185751790
That’s normal for a new artist. I didn’t think it was going anywhere, so I didn’t write down any of their names or handles. I’m trying to add the credit as I find it but it is an ongoing process. That said, I have endless gratitude to the artists who posted their art and shared it publicly. It gave me so much to learn from and so much to aspire toward.
