Silent cry

Real growth comes from getting out of your comfort zone and confronting new challenges. It’s not easy.

Drawing is my silent cry. It’s my way of staying resilient and remember that the journey is more important than the destination.

A girl screaming — ^{I allowed myself to panic after 24 hours}

Life, sketchbook

Staying sane

My survival and stress relief strategy has always been through drawing.

Anteater: Just writing the word won’t make them disappear, you know…

When I was younger I usually drew everyday, but since becoming a parent it’s every other day, and always on weekends. Looking back at all my published and unpublished work I always feel grateful for this gift.

“Everyday do something that gives to you.”
Yours truly

Life, sketchbook

A Bad Day at Work: Surviving Work, Part 3

As I said the other day, all through 2017 I was drawing out my stress. One day, after an incredibly difficult meeting I came back to my desk, and took a few minutes to quietly straighten myself out.

TRANSCRIPT

01: Soo: Thankful I can draw

02: Soo: Ah…Instagram…

03: Instagram post

04: Soo: Quickly finish this then go home for the next meeting

05: Soo: Ma? Umm..hmmm

06: Soo: I’m OK, I’m at work. Such a bad –

07: Ma: Oh you’re at work? I saw your post on Instagram – I thought something was wrong with Orin! Bye!

drawing, Life, sketchbook, Work

Surviving work, part 2

It was early 2017 when I first started to use my drawing to deal with work stress.

I was still grumpily trying to understand what my role as a Design Manager should be, and the anteater, as usual, gave his sage advice:

Sometimes all you need is a different perspective on life, like The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman.

stress02-3

And I also finished reading M Train by Patti Smith around that time.

stress02-4

While all this helps momentarily, there’s actually larger causes for work stresses which need to be carefully resolved. But of course, I didn’t know that then…

drawing, Life, sketchbook, Work

Surviving work

The last two years have been incredible years of growing for me in my professional life. Challenging work, difficult situations, and always the need to build trust from bottom up.

These are some of the earliest drawings from those days:

201702-work-1

201702-work-2

What kept me going was the long game, and guiding myself with

Progress, not perfection

which I learnt from this 99u talk by Effie Brown.

I also draw myself out of stress, since drawing is nearly therapy for me. The 2017 and 2018 sketchbooks are filled with “stressy” drawings – as my friend Uli would say – like this one:

201702-work-3