hi! i'm not sure if you've answered this already but i saw on instagram that you are majoring in mechanical engineering at cornell. i'm going to be in an accelerated medical program in uni, and i'm worried that i won't be have time to draw, study art, practice, etcetera. seeing you consistently producing art amazes and inspires me. how do you balance art and all its things with such an intense major?
Hey! I get this question often, so I figured it’d be a good idea to assemble a decent response to it. Long post incoming. TL;DR: I gotta force myself to draw sometimes, because my mental health probably depends on it.
The honest answer is that I’m actually not that great at uploading art while I’m at school. During freshman year especially I’d just shut off the art side of my brain during exam season—a period which could last anywhere between two to five weeks and began again within a week or two due to Cornell’s batty exam schedule—in an attempt to study more effectively. I figured that less time on art equated linearly to more time on academics, which directly led to more academic success.
Turns out, uh, it’s not that simple. I finished up my sophomore year this spring and I realized that I do way better academically and mentally when I spend some time drawing throughout the day. I don’t know what it’s like for others, but I guess that my brain is just wired such that after a lifetime of drawing, quitting cold turkey for an extended period of time is really not ok for me.
Drawing in class (see the pics in this post), doodling stuff for friends, taking commissions, or studying a figure even just for twenty minutes a day is enough to work. Pushing myself to draw is often quite difficult, especially when I’ve got an exam/problem set/project looming over my head. To anyone in this position—in school or otherwise under enough stress that the thing you love causes you anxiety, fear, or boredom—I’ve got two tips.
The first is that drawing for ten minutes or less a day will make you feel orders of magnitude better than not drawing at all for another day in a row. Even thirty seconds will likely get the job done for you, mentally. I’m not going to BS you and say that you’ll improve much if you draw for ten minutes a day, every day, and no more, but it will give you peace of mind. Even as someone who’s trying to improve their art I find this fact really valuable, simply because I know from experience that getting yourself comfortable with drawing a little bit every day is a really reliable method of getting yourself to draw a lot every day. When you finally have the free time to draw (weekends, breaks, etc.), you’ll thank yourself for setting up that stepping stone.
The second is particularly meant for students with a very specific problem: avoiding making art because you should be studying instead. My roundabout solution works well for me, but may not work for a student who genuinely does not have any free time in their day, so keep that in mind. For me, it works to remind myself that I can easily spend one to three hours a day mindlessly browsing the internet or watching videos, but for some reason my mind takes no issue with this even during exam season. When I’m hesitant about picking up the tablet pen because I’m thinking about the exam in four days, I just tell myself that I’m replacing the time I’d be wasting anyways with something that I consider fulfilling.
I wish you the best of luck with everything (’you’ referring generally to anyone balancing art and school/work; this ask is old enough that the original asker may well be a doctor by now, who knows), and I hope you and art have a good relationship in the years to come. Cue random sketch.
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