Learning to draw something

I was always the writer but never the illustrator. I put myself in that box on purpose because I have a tunnel vision mentality. I told myself to hone all the writing stuff, to avoid focusing on other forms of artistic expression because, well, they didn’t “come as easily.” I was a pretty mean person to myself!

The first time I realized I loved to draw (as an adult, at least) was actually in 2012. I had started obsessively playing “DrawSomething” on iPad, and each illustration became increasingly more robust and detailed. Obviously it started with passionate chicken scratch, but because it was all done within the context of a silly guessing game, I let myself loose on trying new things and drawing in new ways (for me). I even let myself make a ton of mistakes! And I started to learn the beauty of using reference material to practice all the ways I could emulate and even transcend what I was looking at, until the day came when I didn’t really need reference material. At least not every single time.

Fun fact, my “DrawSomething” of Patrick Star has a connection to The Pixar Theory. It was my profile picture on Cracked, which is where I saw the video that first inspired the theory, and it all technically started with my comment on that very video (now lost to the bowels of internet refuse). It was my first attempt at doing the theory connections and enough people reacted positively to it in the comments sections for me to start thinking about it as a blog post and the rest is…well, history is too dramatic a term, but you get it.

Sadly, that drawing of Patrick with a nail and board on his head is nowhere to be found in my old photos, but I do have this fun little WALL-E piece so you can get an idea of what I was up to.

Mind you, I was doing all this about twelve years ago. So much has happened since, and in that time I basically dropped all attempts at illustrating my own ideas. And for no specific reason! My attention and priorities simply drifted elsewhere, plus I grew connections with illustrators who did a lot of the illustrating for me. Sure, I’ve been doing loads of amateur graphic design on Canva for ages, but I very rarely “drew” anything of my own, even for fun. And though I might not look it, I’m the kind of person who literally drew and wrote amateur humor comics in high school. Fine, I probably look it.

Anyway, fast forward to January 2025 and I started writing my own short stories for a Substack called Cetera. And the inevitable problem arose where I wanted to produce original artwork for these stories, and as usual I turned to Canva. I would find some images on my pro account and do a little basic editing with filters and effects and some pretty impressive dragging and dropping if I do say so.

But inevitably, I got to the point where I my ideas for these thumbnails got a little too big for the Canva image library. It first started to happen when I designed the podcast logo for “Worlds Without Warning,” the audio companion for all the Cetera stories. Here’s what it looks like now, made entirely with Canva:

I’m quite proud of the finished product, but it was a real time sink. And the irony is that I technically sketched all of this on living paper before putting it all together digitally. That frustration really sat with me because it made me realize that if I sharpened my illustration skills a bit more, I could just create stuff like this exactly how I wanted. And sure, it would be plenty rough along the way, but I could naturally grow the skill to an acceptable level, at least for my own standards.

So I resolved to start doing more illustration on my own by using Procreate, an iPad Pro, and an Apple Pencil. Though I have also been using Canva for some final details, these pieces have been real challenges for me. What would usually take me about an hour or less to produce on Canva would take several hours if not a dozen on Procreate, and that’s using tutorials and reference material to help me iterate and get things just right.

But sure enough, my DrawSomething muscles gradually kicked in over time, and I’ve started getting a little bit better. I do have to credit some dear illustrator friends for helping me and answering questions that are probably as obvious as they come. For example, I was genuinely a breath away from giving up on the artwork below, if not for some amazing encouragement and suggestions from Bridget Serdock, a longtime friend and critique partner who just happens to be a fantastic illustrator.

I did this artwork for a short story on Cetera called “The Little Match Girl Makes Good,” and though it might look all fine and dandy now, I was a mess with the color mixing when I first put it together, mostly because I couldn’t get the light and shadows right.

In fact, I should probably just share the last five Cetera stories to feature my own artwork in one go. Below is a screenshot of Cetera‘s front page, and it has 5 out of the 8 pieces I’ve illustrated on my own, with the final three being in the archive if you’re curious (they include Magical Pork, A Butcher’s Fable, and That’s Your Problem to Solve. The rest are strictly Canva creations).

Which brings me to the biggest challenge yet. Illustrating myself. Something I’ve never really done at this level, except for maybe stick figures on this site many years ago. Drawing myself truly is a cringe process, where I have to analyze all the messy aspects of my appearance and balance that against what people actually see when they see me. But what in the world do people see when they see me? I genuinely don’t know, nor can I. It’s a little like DrawSomething: a silly guessing game.

But I knew this website in particular needed fresh artwork now that I’m doing this journal. The old branding was of course Pixar focused and based on some great artwork Kayla Savage did of me back in 2016. It’s been a long time, though, and I look drastically different. I see myself differently, too. I did so many sketches of “me” that were absolutely atrocious and I refuse to share them. I think I already deleted them, in fact.

Still, I refused to give up. My thought process was that in writing, I’ve learned over the years to always stick to honesty. Telling a story has to come from a deep, complex jumble of emotions that I don’t always have the words to explain. And they can be embarrassing and expose me to the rest of the world in ways that aren’t always that comfortable. So…illustration should sort of do the same thing, right?

Hence, I finally landed on this:

And the answer is yes, I did use a reference photo. Actually, I used several, but this one stood out the most because it was an expression I think I do honestly make when I’m my most “me.” That is, a little bit of a guard up, but not all the way. A little bit ready to say or do something I’m excited about. It’s a little rough in places, as I didn’t color it in all the way, but I kind of prefer that. Something super polished would not be “me.” Not even close.

To be clear, this is not me announcing some kind of pivot to graphic novels or comics. Writing is still the zone where I want to be right now, and drawing is sort of a beneficial therapy on top of it. Something I don’t really always have the time to do properly, but I’m absolutely loving the opportunity to hone further as a skill worth celebrating. Especially since it can help enrich these stories I’m sharing on the internet all the time.

I want to finish out here with a recommendation if you’re in search of some terrific writing. I read a wonderful poem on Friday by Bob Hicok called “The Eulogy I Didin’t Give (XXXVII),” published back in July for The New Yorker. I almost cried at this line “The best thing about my mother’s apple pie: she was here to make it.” I love this sentiment. The whole poem carries a profound moral message about presence, impermanence, and the preciousness of ordinary moments with loved ones. That we should always treasure the mundane moments of connection while we have them, because it’s not the things themselves but the people who give them meaning.

If you follow me on Instagram (@jonnegroni), you likely already saw my post about this poem, and I even wrote a little essay about my own thoughts about the topic there if you’re interested. Be sure to give me a follow, too, if you haven’t already! I post on there quite regularly.

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