Welp, I’m closing in on the due date for our lil’ baby Blueberry! It’s been a long journey to get here, but goodness is it different than the first time I was pregnant.

With Butterbean, we got pregnant immediately with no interventions. After a smooth first trimester with hardly any nausea, I felt mentally terrible for the rest of the pregnancy. I wallowed on the couch, complained about everything, and cried everywhere I went. One particular memory—which felt quite serious at the time, but I can now look back on and laugh—involved crying at a museum exhibit about dinosaurs in Denver. Also, one time I cried because Declan made me a bowl of yogurt that was not… something? I don’t even know.

At the time, I suppose I thought it was all hormones. The curses of pregnancy and post-partumhood! And to be sure, that played a part. The pregnant/post-birth body is going through some pretty wild changes. But what I can see now, with this current pregnancy, is that it can be different.

When I was pregnant with Butterbean and adapting to new motherhood after she was born, we had just moved across the country from Washington to North Carolina. We didn’t know anyone here and didn’t belong to any form of community.

I was also experiencing some new-found success in my art career and was determined to continue working and growing even with the arrival of a our first baby. I worked long hours, often late into the night, running an online community, making classes, and illustrating my first (and second, and third, and fourth) published books with Scholastic. Somewhere along all that Covid hit, and well, you know how that was.

But this time… this time my pregnancy has been completely different! I learned so many lessons that first go-round (mainly by making mistakes), but also by refusing to just let go. It took me about 2 years to really do that.

I’ve come to realize that pregnancy and motherhood (especially in the baby/toddler years), while difficult and absolutely its own kind of work, is nothing like work-work. Standard rules of cause and effect, effort and result do not apply. Or, they may apply perfectly one day and not at all the very next day.

You can get pregnant immediately with your first child and then require IVF to get pregnant with your second. What? You can eat a very healthy diet and still get diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. Huh? You can give your baby all the love, milk, and cuddles in the world and it will still cry and throw up in your face. Why? You can cook a delicious dinner your child eagerly asks for seconds of, then cook it again one week later only for them to declare they do not like it and will not touch it. Argh!

There’s no predicting it! There’s no mastering it! There are no solid rules to follow that work for every pregnancy/baby/child and what works for one kid will not work for the next. And of course, as soon as you find a rhythm or method that works, the baby has already moved on to the next stage, and everything is new and different for both of you again.

In short, you know nothing and you are in control of nothing. Nothing stays the same for long, and everything is constantly changing.

That’s just the truth of it. And so, when confronted with this often illogical state of pregnancy and early motherhood, you can approach your new life and identity in two ways (spoiler alert: I’ve tried both):

1. You can puff yourself up. You can try to grab hold of everything new and wrestle it into submission, fitting it around your own existing needs, wants, desires, and goals.
   Or…

2. You can step yourself back. You can let go and accept everything new for what it is—whatever it is. You can allow your personal preferences and desires—your Self—to take a backseat. You can, for a time, put someone else’s needs above your own.

The two approaches to motherhood result in very different perspectives. Puffing yourself up makes everything feel unfair. Everything becomes steeped in comparison, guilt, and shame. When your own desires are fulfilled you feel selfish, and when they’re not you feel angry. Spend time working, and you feel like a bad mom. Spend time mom-ing, and you feel like a bad individual/worker/artist/whatever. There’s no winning.

Stepping yourself back, in contrast, feels like a complete change of perspective. Everything becomes a gentle nudge (or sometimes a firm shove) to step outside of yourself. This baby who, for a time, is utterly dependent on you can push you to realize that wait a minute… perhaps my wants and needs are not the most important things in the world. Perhaps there is more to life than just chasing my own desires.

In a word, you can transcend yourself.

When that shift happens, everything changes. Life opens up and lightens up, and you begin to realize how much more to life there is if you would just pull your head out of your own butt for one minute.

But that is, of course, not easy to do. Neither is it something we learn and choose just once in our lives. It is, like maybe all the truly important things in life, something we learn and forget, re-learn and re-forget, over and over. That’s why I’m writing this essay—to remind myself of the choices I have, both now and in the months to come.

Because I know there will be times when my coffee gets cold, my granola gets soggy, my hair gets oily, and I don’t have the time or energy to draw or write the way I’d like to. But during those same times, there will be two sweet pink-cheeked little faces floating around me whispering wisdom in their own way: Hey, life is more than hot coffee. Life is bigger than you. I need my diaper changed. I need a snack. And Mama, look… look at this beautiful flower blooming right here.

My Maternity Leave

And so, in that spirit, I’m beginning my Maternity Leave from my work now! Stepping back from some things, to leave space to step into others for a time.

What does that mean for this Substack Newsletter?

• As of today, all paid subscriptions are paused.

  • If you currently pay for a monthly subscription (thank you!), you will not be charged again until I restart paid subscriptions. You will be notified via email when I have done so.

  • If you paid for an annual subscription (thank you!), your subscription will pause where it is at right now. So if you had 4 months left on your year subscription, you will still have 4 months left when I restart paid subscriptions.

• I will not be posting here on a regular schedule for at least a few months.

  • I may still draw occasionally in my sketchbook (who knows how often!) but am not committing to anything and will not be sharing much, if anything, publicly.

❤️ Thank You! ❤️

I love my career as an indie artist, writer, illustrator, sketchbook-drawer, and bookmaker. It’s a huge part of my life and identity and brings me so much fulfillment and joy. And you, as a reader and subscriber, make my work possible. So thank you for supporting my work, my books, my classes, this Substack, and this maternity leave.

Sometimes it’s good to step back even from the things we love, and I expect I’ll be back in the months to come with a renewed spirit and inspiration for new creative projects!

Thanks for everything!

<3,
Christine

Ok, ok, ok! So far, I’ve explained my Might Could Mindset theory and showed you how it can be used to draw the three most dreaded subjects: faces, hands, and horses. Now, it’s your turn! So grab a pen and let’s draw!

🚨 Important Note: For this exercise to work best, don’t look ahead at the instructions before you begin! Complete with Step 1 before you continue reading! C’mon, it’ll be fun!

Step 1: Mess Up the Page

All right, so you’re probably nervous about making that first mark. The page is so blank and pristine and hasn’t been messed up yet, and the first mark could ruin everything! Where do we start? How do we decide what to draw first?

Let’s kick down that Blank Page Syndrome and Perfectionism with a big ol’ squiggle. Just take your pen—whatever pen you have near you is fine—and make a random squiggly mark on the page.

I want you to draw a total of 5 squiggles at varying sizes. Keep them simple and be quick—don’t overthink it! This doesn’t matter at all, it’s just nonsense squiggles on a page! I’ll give you just few more seconds to do this.

Step 2: Are You a Cat or Dog Person?

Ok, now one thing I believe about learning to draw is that drawing can be a very personal activity, and discovering your unique way of drawing is often also a matter of discovering yourself. It requires some introspection and self-awareness. It requires having something to say, taking a stand, and communicating the very essence of what it is to live as a human being. So with that in mind, I have a very important philosophical question for you:

Great. Now that we’ve settled that deeply meaningful distinction, we can move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Squiggle Cats or Dogs

Surprise! I tricked you. Those squiggles you drew earlier actually do matter. They are now the beginning of your drawings!

First, I want you to look at your squiggles. Do you think you could turn those squiggles into cats? Or, if you answered our question in a more canine-orientation, could you turn your squiggles into dogs? We might could, yeah?

Look at one of your squiggles and try to see the shape of a cat or dog in it. Perhaps you can see the suggestion of a head or the wisp of a tail. Could it be the loose shape of a cat stretching or a dog yawning? Maybe it’s running or sleeping or licking? Try adding a pair of eyes to a squiggle. Now add four legs. Now add a tail and ears. There! You drew a cat!

What’s that, Inner Critic? Your drawing doesn’t look like a cat? Says who?! You can’t tell me what my cat can look like! Silenzio, Bruno! (Thanks, Luca.)

Ok, give yourself about 10 minutes to work on making your squiggles into cats or dogs and then we’ll reconvene. Maybe start the timer and play some music while you draw. I’m gonna do it with you now!

.

.

.

Ok, that’s our timer!

We Did It!

Here are some of my Squiggle Cats I drew in my sketchbook! How silly and fun! Yours probably look very different and that’s great—everyone will create totally unique cat drawings with this exercise. That’s kind of the point. To show you some of the range of endless possibilities, here are a few examples from people who attended my in-person workshop:

Brilliant! I just want to pull out a couple of drawings from those two pages to highlight how original and unique these squiggle pets can be:

So fantastic! Now you may be wondering why we did this drawing exercise. Or perhaps you’re feeling self-critical about the squiggle pets you just created. So let’s look at the why behind this way of drawing and try to reorient your mindset.

What’s the Point?

Drawing these squiggle cats and dogs helps us draw in a way where we aren’t being self-critical and overthinking, and instead look at things more abstractly. It helps us focus more on the process of creating, rather than the final product. And it smashes the belief in the binary right or wrong way of drawing something, opening our minds to the possibilities of our imagination.

If I had just told you in Step 1 to draw a cat or dog, would you ever have drawn it like you did here? Probably not. But now, because you approached it without the extra weight of those artistic obstacles, you’ve drawn a completely original page of cats or dogs! No one has ever drawn a cat or dog before like you just drew. They are completely unique.

I firmly believe that when people say they can’t draw, what they really mean is they can’t draw the way they think they’re supposed to draw—the way they’ve been told is the “right” way to draw.

My Biggest Advice

So here’s my biggest piece of advice: when you’re drawing, you gotta slam the door in your inner critic’s face, and tap into your inner rebel instead.

We have to follow rigid rules so often in life, so why not use our art as a time to break the rules and do what we want? No one can tell you how to draw. People may try to tell you something is right or wrong—I’ve had people tell me all sorts of things about my art are wrong, including how I hold a pen—but those people are only trying to protect their own way of drawing and make themselves feel better about how they choose to draw.

Making art isn’t about right or wrong. Making art is about playing around, exploring the possibilities, and growing and learning with every piece we make. To me, there is no objectively good or bad art. It’s all subjective—it’s all up to you and what you think.

And really, making art isn’t even about the art-part at all. It’s about the making. It’s about the process of drawing and creating and learning to fall back in love with drawing and remembering how fun drawing can be when we stop worrying about trying to do it the right way.

There is no right way to draw. There’s only drawing or not drawing.

So… Which Is It Going to Be For You?

Which do you choose: drawing or not drawing? You can, you can’t, or you might could? The ball is in your court now—it’s up to you to choose.

I firmly believe that everyone can draw, and not just draw, but draw in their own way, with their own artistic style. And I’ve learned a lot about how to do that over my years of making and teaching art.

The most important things I’ve learned:

• The artistic journey is a lifelong journey. As self-taught artists, we never really graduate art school—we’re always learning and growing and evolving.

• You can teach someone how to be an artist by building up their artistic mindset and facilitating art exploration.

• Learning and teaching how to make art isn’t just about information, it’s about action and people. We learn by making. And we learn more by making together and sharing what we’ve learned with each other.

Share Your Work With Us!

I really want to see what you came up with for our squiggle pet drawing exercise! If you’d like to share your drawings with us, you can snap a photo and upload it here in this Substack Chat thread! I love seeing them!

Share your work here!

Welp, that’s the end of this workshop series, I hope you liked it—let me know what you think and if you’d like to see more stuff like this!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see your drawings in the Chat!

<3,
Christine

Last week, I wrote about how many of us came to be so critical of our artwork, proclaiming it good or bad based on rules, judgment, and comparison. About how we, at some point in our lives, shifted from drawing for fun to drawing for perfection. And finally, how adopting the Might Could Mindset (not can, not can’t, but might could!) can help us remain open, expand our idea of what’s possible, and stay light-heartedly positive, leading to an invigorated creativity!

Sounds great, right? But now you’re probably thinking, “Ok, but like… how does it work? How do I do that?” So that’s where we’re going today!

The 3 Big Artistic Challenges

Theory is great and all, but let’s move into the realm of practice. Let’s see the Might Could Mindset in action with what I’m calling the Three Big Artistic Challenges!

In the drawing world, many people (even tons of professional artists!) often harbor one or all of these three beliefs:

1. I can’t draw faces

2. I can’t draw hands

3. I can’t draw horses

And I get it! Those things can be extremely difficult to draw. But let’s zoom out and think about why these three subjects seem so challenging to draw.

I Can’t Draw Faces!

If you are someone who believes you can’t draw human faces, and you think about sitting down at your desk to attempt to draw a face, I bet the imagery that comes to your mind looks something like this:

Anatomical illustrations, skeletal frames, and musculature maps. Precise proportions, detailed instructions, and rules to follow.

The images on the right above are from the book, Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis. The book is a bit dated, published back in 1943, but many artists still view it as a classic illustration textbook. To me, though, this book (and its method of drawing) is a roadblock.

If you currently believe you can’t draw faces, and the images above are what you’re attempting to achieve and comparing your own drawings to, you’re likely to be overcome by the challenge and daunted by the large gap between what’s on your page and what’s in this book. Or you might feel stifled and locked down by the strict rules and measurements dictated in this book.

To be clear, I am not saying that drawing realistically is bad or wrong. Audrey Kawasaki is one of my favorite artists and she draws her human characters quite realistically in terms of proportion and anatomy. I am saying this: there is no wrong way to draw faces, and therefore, there is no right way to draw faces. Drawing realistically is not the pinnacle of drawing—it’s not the strongest, best, or right way. It is merely one of many, many styles and ways of drawing.

In his book, Andrew Loomis is showing you how to draw the way he draws. Perhaps that style and approach to drawing comes naturally to you, feels good to you and you enjoy it—if so, great!

But there are infinite ways to draw faces!

Who’s to say that the way I draw faces, as seen above, is wrong? Are these faces proportionally correct? No. Are they representative of realistic anatomy? No! Do I care? Heck, no! This is the style and way of drawing that comes naturally to me, that feels good, and that I personally and subjectively like best! And this too, is not the ultimate-right-way of drawing. It’s just my way, that’s all!

So what is at the root of your belief that you can’t draw faces? Is it that you’re actually incapable of doing so? Or is it that you’ve only tried to do it in one, narrow way that maybe just didn’t jive with you?

If you approach drawing faces instead with a Might Could Mindset of openness, possibilities, and light-hearted positivity… suddenly a world of options opens up and you feel more free to explore, experiment, and play! Not only are you more likely to have fun and stick with drawing (leading you to grow and improve), but you’re also more likely to discover your own unique way of drawing faces, rather than imitating someone else and following someone else’s rules. Your way is the best way.

I Can’t Draw Hands!

So what about the dreaded hands? The same ideas apply—we can approach drawing hands in a very specific narrow way, attempting to draw hands based on strict realism and rules.

Or we can ditch the rules, expand our options, and draw hands in a multitude of different ways! We can simplify, exaggerate, and experiment with what makes a hand a hand. Hands could have five fingers, four fingers, or even no fingers! Arms could be wiggly spaghetti noodles!

We could approach drawing hands with trepidation and a “there’s no way I could do that” attitude, or we could go the Might Could route and just see what happens when we loosen our idea of what a hand could look like!

I Can’t Draw Horses!

And lastly, perhaps the most difficult thing to draw in the entire world: horses. (Or is it bikes?) Horse anatomy makes no sense when you really look at it and attempt to draw it. Their legs go out at odd angles, they have huge muscles, their necks are giant, and their heads are just… weird!

You could attempt to draw a photo-realistic horse (and there’s nothing wrong with that, a lot can be learned from that exercise). But remember, sticking as close as possible to reality is not the only way to draw a horse.

If you try the realistic way, and you don’t enjoy it, don’t jump to assuming you “can’t draw horses”. Instead, try saying, “I might could!” Open up, lighten up, expand the possibilities, and try drawing a horse differently! Forget perspective, forget volume, forget realistic colors and shapes, and just draw!

Who says a horse can’t be drawn as a red blob with stick legs, a flat yellow mane, and two googly eyes on the same side of the head in a perspective that clearly would not happen in the real world?

I mean, why are you really drawing in the first place? To record and imitate the world around you in as close a manner as possible? Or to express something deeper, to dig down into the essence of the thing you’re drawing, and pull that out onto the page?

A realistically drawn horse based on the top photograph is just that: a drawing of a horse. It’s like a visual dictionary definition of the word horse. But the simplified, abstractly drawn horses in my example are something else: they’re closer to characters in a story. They’re not just drawings of horses, they also pull in some of me, how I was feeling when I drew them, what I think about horses, my experiences with horses, books/movies/stories I’ve heard about horses, and how horses look subjectively to me.

Allowing your unique way of seeing and interpreting the world to seep into your drawing is, in my opinion, when a drawing transcends into art. Perhaps you see things scientifically, mathematically, and realistically. Or perhaps you don’t.

Dropping the can’t mindset and shifting to a might could mindset can lead you to discover how all of that can come together on the page in a way that is quintessentially you. Faces drawn in your way. Hands drawn in your way. And horses drawn in your own unique way.

Next Up: Now It’s YOUR Turn!

Somehow this little Might Could phrase can shift my whole mindset. It simultaneously makes me take things more and less seriously. It makes me believe what I want to do—what I wish I could do—is possible, while also putting the onus on me to make it happen. It makes things feel approachable and doable. With this mindset, anything is possible. Drawing difficult things like faces, hands, and horses? Well, you never know what might could happen!

In Part 3 of this workshop, it’s your turn to draw. Next week we’ll put pen to paper with a special drawing exercise to encourage you to adopt the Might Could mindset and draw in a whole new way.

Thanks for reading—see you next week!

<3,
Christine

Last week, I did something new and (for me) nerve-racking—I taught a live, in-person drawing workshop! I teach online classes regularly but have not hosted many in-person events. I was invited to speak at a local art museum and before I could think about it too much, I said yes! Like many artists, I’m relatively introverted and awkward when given a microphone, so I was pretty nervous!

Anyways, the event happened last Thursday and it went pretty well, so now I’m sharing the workshop and drawing exercises here with you! This will be a 3-part series, with Part 1 below.

Here’s a summary of the workshop: Many people believe they can’t draw, but what they really mean is they can’t draw the way they think they’re SUPPOSED to draw. I’ve gotten stuck in that mindset too, but over the years, I learned to let go of the rules, comparisons, and expectations to draw more freely, have more fun, and find my own unique artistic style. This workshop aims to help you ditch the rules, let loose, and find your unique way of drawing!

Who Am I?

So first, I thought I'd introduce myself and discuss some of my projects. I’m Christine Nishiyama and I'm a full-time artist. I went to school for graphic design and then became a self-taught artist and started working as an illustrator. I’ve been running my creative business, Might Could Studios, for the past 12 years. Under that umbrella, I have lots of different projects, including:

• Traditionally published books: Layla and the Bots graphic novel series with Scholastic

• Self-published picture books: We Are Fungi and We Are Jellyfish

• Craft books: Might Could Make a Book and Sketchbook to Style

When not making books, I also:

• Write weekly essays on my Substack, I Might Could Do That!, sharing my process and thoughts on artmaking

• Teach online classes on Skillshare, with 25+ on drawing and artmaking

• And draw in my sketchbook!

And the drawing in my sketchbook is really the thing I love the most. Making little drawings for no reason other than to do it, drawing whatever little story or character appears on the page just for the fun of it. And so, that brings me to why you're here today—for a drawing workshop.

But… I Can’t Draw!

Through teaching myself to draw and creating more than 25 art classes over the years, I’ve learned what's really holding people back from drawing how they wish they could draw. But I'm getting ahead of myself—so let’s back up.

I’m guessing many of you came here today because you like reading and looking at picture books. And then, when you sat down and saw paper and pens lying in front of you, you may have panicked because you believe that you can’t draw. Or more specifically, you believe you can’t draw well. So let’s start there.

Most of us grew up drawing as kids, whether scribbling with crayons as a toddler or doodling our favorite cartoon characters as we grew older. As kids, we drew simply because we liked to—because it was fun and we enjoyed it. But at some point, we started to notice the quality of our drawings.

Rules + Judgment

Maybe someone—a parent, an art teacher, a sibling, a classmate—told you you were drawing something the “wrong” way. Or maybe someone told you there were artistic rules to follow, and you weren’t following them, so therefore, your drawings were bad.

Comparison

Or perhaps, instead of encountering the rules, you ran into comparison. You noticed the quality of someone else’s drawings—an older sibling, a friend, someone who could draw well in your eyes. And then, you looked at your own art in a whole new light. You began to notice the lack of quality in your drawings. Your art wasn’t nearly as good as theirs.

A Changing Mindset

And so now, when you tried to sit down and draw, your mindset was suddenly different. You weren’t drawing because you liked drawing or because it was fun. You were drawing to live up to the comparison to someone else or achieve some ideal of perfection.

And that’s when most people quit drawing.

Crushed Creativity

I want to pause here, and ask you: when did you first begin to believe you couldn’t draw? Did something happen that made you think you drew badly? Did someone tell you the way you drew something was wrong or tried to show you the right way? (For you readers: I'd love for you to share any of these experiences as a comment here on this post!)

Most of us have a story like this, and it makes me so sad. It breaks my heart to think of all the art the world has missed out on because people’s creativity got crushed so early in life, stopping them from exploring it and seeing where it could go.

After 10 years of teaching artists—hearing our common experiences and seeing our similar struggles—I believe this learned “I Can’t Draw” mindset is the biggest obstacle to overcome in artmaking. Even for artists and people who regularly draw!

Once we believe we can’t do something well, that belief lingers in the back of our minds for years, clouding our experience. And I get it, I’ve been there. The jump from can’t to can is extremely difficult.

But my goal here isn't to change your mind from believing that you can’t draw to you can draw. That’s too big of a shift to make in one little workshop. My real goal today is: I want to take you from I can’t draw to I might could draw.

The Might Could Mindset

Might Could is kind of my mantra in life, as well as the name of my business. It’s southern slang here in North Carolina and is sort of in-between “can” and “can’t”. If someone asks you, “Hey, do you want to teach a live workshop in February?”, you’d reply, “Sure, I might could do that.” You want to, but you’re not totally sure that you can. The desire is there, but so is the doubt. Maybe you can, maybe you can’t, but you might could! I grew up hearing this phrase often from my mom and grandma.

Some people think the phrase is non-committal (sorry, planners) and some people find it frustrating (sorry, grammar nerds). But I love the gently optimistic mindset “might could” encourages. It inspires me to remain open, expand my idea of what’s possible, and stay light-heartedly positive.

Once I adopted might could as a belief system, it became much easier to approach my dreams and overcome challenges. Rather than already making up my mind before I even begin, might could puts the ball in my court. It encourages me to just try. The Might Could mindset reminds me that it’s really up to me if I can or can’t do something.

Next Up: The Three Big Artistic Challenges

In Part 2 of this workshop, we’ll see this mindset in action with what I’m calling the Three Big Artistic Challenges. Within the world of drawing, a large majority of people (even professional artists!) often believe and say to themselves: “I can’t draw faces, hands, and horses.” And again, I get it! Those things are extremely hard to draw!

So next week, we’ll look at each of those challenges and two different ways of approaching them: “I can’t” vs “I might could”!

Thanks for reading, see you next week!

<3,
Christine

P.S. Don’t forget to share your experiences with artistic rules, judgment, comparison, and whether you believe or have believed that you can’t draw in the comments below!

Last week, when I bought a few new alcohol markers, I got to thinking—it’s hard to see and remember what marker colors I have! Sure, I’ve got them lined up in one of those silly marker holders, but it’s still unclear what I’ve got to work with. Am I missing a big chunk of the rainbow? Are those caps actually indicative of how the ink looks on paper?

And then, I found this lovely color chart by Artist’s Loft:

So of course, I immediately printed one out and colored it in with all my markers. I included both the Artist’s Loft brand and whatever other brands I had (those are designated by blue pen). And it was actually a really interesting exercise!

It showed me where I was indeed missing some spots of the rainbow, specifically pale pinks, yellows, and blues. The blues I can account for: a couple of my blue Copic markers dried out recently and I had to throw them out.

But the balance of colors I have (and therefore the balance of colors I use in my drawings) is interesting. I don’t have hardly any pale pinks. I have quite a few turqouises, and I have plenty of greens. How funny! When people (aka kids) ask what my favorite color is, I usually say turquoise or green. And that’s subconsciously showing through in my color choices! Interesting.

Once I finished marking all my colors and seeing which were left blank, I felt the strong temptation to collect them all just like my Pokemon days of the early 2000’s. I suppose there’s some innate desire in humans to complete a collection, to own every piece. But not only would it be extremely expensive to buy every color available, it’s also not the best method for making art.

I don’t need every color to create a piece of cool art. Minimal color palettes (in my opinion) are more enticing and beautiful than palettes that include every color of the rainbow. Not having every color to work with leads to interesting constraints that force creative solutions.

For example, if you’re drawing a raccoon but don’t have shades of gray to draw with, perhaps you draw the raccoon in shades of blue instead. Wouldn’t that be just as good… or maybe even better?

So anyways, while I enjoyed plotting out my marker box and visualizing what’s in there, I’m gonna sit on what I have for a while before getting any new markers. I’ll work with what I’ve got and see what comes of it!

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

P.S. Have you ever made a chart of the colors of any of your art materials? What did you think about it?

This was the first full week of my Year of Play where I began prioritizing drawing over other things. Instead of drawing “when I have time,” I’m putting drawing first on my to-do list. So this week, after dropping Butterbean off at school, I sat down at my desk and drew in my sketchbook. Before anything else—before email, checking my online classes, tracking expenses, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, and all the other tasks pulling at me.

Sometimes it feels self-indulgent to spend an hour or more daily just drawing in my sketchbook. But then I remind myself: this is my job! If I am a Mom and an Artist, then I should prioritize Mom-things and Art-things.

When I’m in Mom-mode, I prioritize being present with Butterbean (rather than the more administrative tasks like registering her for summer camp). And so, when I’m in Artist-mode, I should prioritize being present with my art (rather than admin tasks like email, taxes, and presentations).

That doesn’t mean those other Artist-and-Mom tasks don’t have to be done. They do, of course. But they shouldn’t be my first priority—they shouldn’t be the first thing I do when I sit down to focus. Play first/draw first, then fill in the gaps with the other stuff. That’s what I’m trying out for this year anyways!

✏️ Psst… paid subscribers can keep reading below for more on how new (cheap!) art supplies help me get in play-mode in my sketchbook and see my finished sketchbook page!

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Can you believe it’s 2025? It sounds so futuristic. I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year—Butterbean’s not back in school yet and we just got a surprise snowfall in the mountains with more coming tonight, so it still feels like vacation to me!

My first essay of the past few New Years has been about choosing a Word of the Year to reflect on the previous year and set some intentions for the upcoming year. So here we go!

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Previous Words of the Year

In 2021, I tried to branch out and Grow upward.
In 2022, I tried to dig down to the roots and go Deeper.
In 2023, I tried to zoom out to Harmonize what matters most.
In 2024, I contentedly sank into Unknowing.

So what will my word of the year be for 2025? I’m not really sure where you go after a year of Unknowing, so let’s first look back at the past year before I noodle over that. So unknowing, eh?

Recap of 2024

Here’s a quick look at what happened last year at Might Could!

• I published a new book, Might Could Make a Book: How to Write, Illustrate, and Publish Your Children’s Picture Book! I revised and updated of my two most popular online classes, taken by over 14,000 students, to make it into a printed book!

• And published a second new book(!), We Are Jellyfish, a children’s picture book I had been working on for 2.5 years! This is the second book in my We Are… series. I’m already ideating on what organism should be next. :)

• I shared the final 9 (of 41!) process posts in my Substack section, Might Could Make a Book, about the making of We Are Jellyfish.

• I released Sketchbook to Style as an online class on Skillshare. This is my flagship in-depth course on developing your artistic style. If you don’t have a Skillshare membership, this link will give you 1 free month! (Psst… Sketchbook to Style is also available as a printed book if you prefer a reading!

• I created a serialized comics collection, IVF Comics, as a way to process and share my experience with infertility + IVF. I described these comics in the very first one as dumb and messy, and I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom, looseness, and no-planning/no-expectations method of creating them. Spoiler Alert: I’m now 21 weeks pregnant. ❤️

• I wrote fewer essays in 2024 (as I focused on my books) but here are a few I’m proud of:

  • How to Make a Portrait of a Bird (AKA: How to Make a Piece of Art)

  • What Makes Your Art Good or Bad? Four Theories on Judging Art

  • If We’re Not Supposed to Draw, Why All The Frogs? Inspired by the poet Gregory Orr (and also Rumi!)

  • My Journey to Discovering the Art I Want to Make

• I wrote some poems?! In February, I was invited to be the Writer-in-Residence for a month-long Cohort in the writer's collective, Foster. I found this experience more impactful than I anticipated and it kind of felt like my head cracked open a bit (in a good way!). In 2023, I had been trying to write essays about spirituality + creativity through a series called The Art of Wisdom, but was struggling to untangle and communicate my thoughts. During the Foster Cohort, it dawned on me that an essay was not the right format for what I was trying to say. From there, a poem poured out of me in a pure moment of flow that somehow says it all. After that, I wrote some others and really enjoyed exploring a new method of creating.

• I’m still off social media! I quit social media in April 2022 and have not gone back! Highly recommend.

• I’m still not drinking! I quit drinking alcohol in August 2022 and am still goin’ strong, so I’ve now been alcohol-free for two years and four months—that’s 872 days!

• We moved Butterbean from a full-day/5-day to a half-day/4-day school program. It’s such a sweet community and her extra time out of school is spent either with she and I doing something together (swimming, library, park, cooking, etc.) or her having self-directed, no-adult playtime. It’s been wonderful for both of us. Do I have less time to work? Yes. But the benefits are more important to me right now, and you’d be surprised what you can still get done in 16 hours/week.

• We’ve become more involved in our church community. I finished my two-year terms on the two community boards I was on, but have become more involved with our church—something I didn’t think I’d be saying 3 years ago! We’re part of a small group and a young parents group, we go most weeks to the Thursday night dinners, and I created what I called an Art Walk in the church to help raise awareness for a program they were creating. They even let me draw on the windows with Poscas! Being a part of a real community like this, with a network of giving and receiving support, and encouraging a sense of something-greater-than-day-to-day-life is relatively new for me, but—at the risk of sounding melodramatic—it has been a total game-changer in my life and mental well-being.

Unknowing What?

Whew! I’m always surprised to write this recap and review everything I created over the previous year. But as I was looking back, this one line in my essay titled My Journey to Discovering the Art I Want to Make, stands out:

Who’d have thunk it? The year I decided to let go, not make a bunch of overly ambitious plans, and stopped trying to force things into happening… well, it was kind of like a drain unclogging, and the real things, the good things, were allowed to happen. Things I had been wanting deep down for years! Like making Might Could Make a Book and finishing We Are Jellyfish. And writing whatever the heck I wanted to on this Substack!

So what exactly led me to feel more creatively open and energized? I think there’s a big clue at the end of last year’s Word of the Year essay. Previously, at the end of these New Year’s essays, I would write up a Big Important Plan for the next year, full of new initiatives, exciting announcements, and schedules to meet specific goals. But last year, I didn’t do that. Instead, I listed three simple “loosey-goosey goals”: (1) Work on We Are Jellyfish, (2) Work on turning my picture book classes into a book and (3) Draw in my sketchbook. That was it!

And lo and behold, having loose, simple goals instead of rigid, convoluted goals led to a whole lot more getting done—and not just task work, but things that matter to me, things that mean something to me, things that feel fulfilling.

I think, when I let go of thinking I knew what I could achieve in a year or trying to pack in as much as I could possibly get done in a year, my whole body and brain and imagination relaxed and breathed deeply and said, alright then, let’s just play.

In short, I got out of my own way.

Intentions for 2025

All that to say, I’m gonna try to keep that mindset going into this new year. I have some new no-pressure-no-expectations goals for 2025. I’m not declaring any new schedule or concocting new, big projects. These are just the directions I would like to travel towards—a way to orient myself and what I do each day.

• 👶 It’s gonna be a Baby Year. I’m currently 21 weeks pregnant and lil’ baby Blueberry is due in May. When I was pregnant with Butterbean, I approached motherhood like a typical Millennial—I thought to myself: “I’m not gonna let this baby change my life or get in the way of my career goals!” But you know, ha-ha, babies do not care about silly things like careers or other people’s needs. It took me a long time to allow myself to sink into motherhood (aka become more flexible and less self-absorbed). Anyways, I could write a million words about all that, but the point is: Butterbean taught me a lot about what’s important in life and how sometimes you gotta put other people’s needs in front of your own (and how that in itself can be more fulfilling and liberating than just doing what you want all day long). So! This time around, I’m going into second-baby-hood trying to keep all that in mind. I’m going into this year expecting that I will not be as productive as I was this year was. And that is ok.

• 💻 Launch my Picture Book online class. I know I said I wasn’t committing to any big projects, but this was really a 2023 project that is 95% already done! I plan to release this new class in January and then after that, I’ll be taking a break from big projects like classes and books. I’ll still be making things and sharing here in this Substack! But I’m not going to box myself into any new, big projects or initiatives right now. We’ll just see what happens!

• ✏️ Draw in my sketchbook. That’s it!

My Word of the Year: Play

So I think, now that reflected back and pondered forward, I’ve come up with my Word of the Year for 2025: Play.

This year is going to be a year of upheaval (in a good way) and so, will require flexibility, remaining open, and fitting in some creativity whenever I can. To allow that to happen, and to allow myself all the time and space I need (and want!) to care for my growing family, I’m dedicating this the year of Play.

I’ll just make things for fun. With no expectations, no judgment, no timelines or deadlines, and for no reason other than just because I felt like it. I’ll draw or I’ll write or I’ll make a comic or I’ll explore something new. I’ll take the beginner’s mindset and not care how good what I make is. I’ll make stuff just because it’s fun to make stuff. I’ll just play.

I can tell this is the right word and right direction for this year because it excites me and relaxes me at the same time. I can take it easy. I can focus on lil’ Blueberry. And I can just play on the page.

What Happenin’ in This Substack!

To wrap up, here’s a quick summary of how I Might Could Do That! is currently set up going into 2025.

• Once a week: Like last year, I aim to send subscribers one post per week, rotating between writing and drawing or both as I wish. I don’t know where I will be pulled this year, but I’m sure I’ll get pulled somewhere!

• On whatever day it happens: I used to force myself to post every Tuesday (because, you know, they say to be consistent) but then I realized that’s dumb and no one cares and now I send out my posts on whatever day I finish them. I’m much happier and my work is much better this way.

• Free subscribers get 50% of my posts, while paid subscribers get 100%. Your financial contribution supports all of my work and allows me to continue writing and making things! 🎉 (Psst… it’s 50% off if you upgrade by January 13!). 🎉

• Content: My post content varies, but it all revolves around how to live as an artist, mom, and human being, exploring creativity and artmaking, and how art influences and improves our lives. Sometimes my essays are more word-heavy, and sometimes they’re more art-heavy. Sometimes I have one or two series going on, and sometimes I make a bunch of one-offs. Who knows what this year has in store?

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2025’s Word of the Year

In 2021, I tried to branch out and Grow upward.
In 2022, I tried to dig down to the roots and go Deeper.
In 2023, I tried to zoom out and Harmonize what matters most.
In 2024, I contentedly sank into Unknowing.
In 2025, I’m just gonna Play.

Thanks for reading! Do you have a word of intention for this year? Or does one come to mind now? What is it?!

<3,
Christine

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I recently finished the book, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World, by the poet Jane Hirshfield, and it is not an exaggeration to say this book blew me away.

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while now, you know that for years I’ve been chasing questions about art. Why do we make art? What does art do for us? How is art so powerful? What is art?

I know I’m not the first person to ask these questions and many people (artists, art historians, philosophers, etc.) have attempted to answer them in their own way over the centuries. I’ve read the books and essays of many of those people. Some of them occasionally hit home and sound a deep clang in my mind. But this book—Ten Windows—is so closely aligned with my thoughts that I practically highlighted the whole book.

Though Hirshfield is a poet and focuses on the specific work and art of poetry, at the essence, she is hunting down the same questions I am. And her book does not answer these questions concretely (that would actually be quite sad, wouldn’t it?), she certainly collects heaps of wisdom. (One perhaps being, that there are no answers to questions like these.)

So! Having just finished it, I would like to comb back through this treasure of a book, pulling out the threads that spoke to me most, teasing apart the strands a bit more, and weaving in my own thoughts.

This will be a loose essay series, spanning as many weeks as it takes me to go through the book (or get bored). It’s still summer over here in the Nishiyama house, and I’m still doing IVF, so I’ll chip away at this as I can, in between playing Queens + Kings with Butterbean, driving to doctor’s appointments, and sticking needles in my butt.

Let’s go!

Throughout Ten Windows, Hirshfield offers up a multitude of definitions of “art” or answers to the question, “What is good art?” Many of her sentences begin, “Good art is…” or “Good poems are…” And so, it’s no surprise that the very first page of the book starts with this:

With this, we can see the entire thesis of her book: art exists to transform us. And that “us” applies to everyone—both the creator (the artist, the poet, the illustrator, the writer, the musician) and the recipient (the viewer, the audience, the reader, the listener). And the continuation of her thesis is that, as individuals are changed through art, so too is the world changed. Good art changes, alters, enlarges, and expands us as individuals, and we then go on to change the world.

Hirshfield says that her book aims to pursue “a single question: How do poems—how does art—work? Under that question, inevitably is another: How do we?” And almost immediately she admits, “Such a question cannot be answered.”

And yet, she has chased this question she says, for 30 years! I myself have been chasing similar questions for…

…

Wait a second, y’all. As I went to count up the years, I just realized last week was my Might Could Anniversary! On July 17, 2012, I bought my web domain and officially started my indie-artist-business, Might Could Studios.

Usually, on July 17 each year, I write a special Anniversary Essay, celebrating another year of being an indie artist and somehow making it work! As I write each year’s essay, I like to go back and read the last year’s essay to see how things have changed. Did I do what I said I would do? How did I grow and evolve? How silly and naive did I sound 365 days ago?

In 2022, I wrote this essay celebrating 10 years of Might Could. In it, I would say my overall goal for that next year (2023) was to “just be”. I was burnt out, emotionally exhausted, and tired of straining and struggling to make something happen. I was finally learning to cultivate a more accepting mindset and let go of trying to control every little aspect of my work and career. And, realizing that, I aimed to align my career (how I spend my time and the things I make) more with that mindset. I wanted to loosen the reins a bit, go with the flow, and just see what happens.

And y’all, I’m proud to report that, while I am absolutely an imperfect work-in-progress, I believe I’ve made some huge steps in that direction. The first piece of evidence is that I forgot my Might Could anniversary last year and didn’t write a post about it at all! I was too busy working on my jellyfish book and enjoying Summer with Butterbean, that I missed it! And didn’t even know it until right now! And then, I almost just did the same thing again this year!

The only reason I remembered it today (a week late) was by writing about Jane Hirshfield chasing her question for 30 years above and then doing the math on my own years of chasing. Call it ignorance if you want, but I see it as evidence that I was/am living more in the moment, following my curiosity, making the work I want to make, and just plain enjoying life.

And so, this year I suppose this is my anniversary essay, but I’m not making any grand plans or declarations for the future. My only goal is to keep writing, keep drawing, keep asking and chasing questions.

I am, however, celebrating the fact that I’m still here, still cobbling together an indie art career after 12 years. It’s erratic and unstable and always up-in-the-air, but I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’m still writing, drawing, and pulling apart my questions, albeit now with a better understanding of why I’m doing it.

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I used to think I’d find actual, concrete answers to the questions I asked, and that the purpose of my searching was to find answers. Remember when I started that Exploring the Big Life Questions Through Art series? Talk about naivety! But, there are parts of that series where I touched on something real. One of the headers of that essay was “Learning to Live With the Questions (And Recording the Journey to Get There)”. And I think over these last two years, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do.

Ask the question, chase the question… but not with the goal to answer it. The point is to learn to live with the questions.

Jane Hirshfield ends the preface to her book, Ten Windows, commenting on her two life-long questions “How does art work” and under that, “How do we?”:

Art is a mystery. How art has the power to transform us, alter our mindsets, and change our lives is a question that can’t be answered.

And yet.

And yet, like Hirshfield, this asking, searching, following, pulling has given me pleasure too. The answer doesn’t matter! An answer would end it all, would put a stop to the search, the chase, the pleasure. It’s the question that propels me.

All I know is that art has transformed and altered me, and I hope it continues to do so for another 12, 30, 50 years.

A New Online Class + 2 New Books!

I did put out some new things since the last anniversary update! Art has had such a transformative effect on me and my life, that I try my best to help other artists (and people who are afraid to call themselves artists!) make more art. Art is good! Make more of it! If you’re interested, I have a new class and two new books available!

• Sketchbook to Style (my in-depth class on developing your artistic style) is now available as an online class on Skillshare! If you don’t have a Skillshare membership, this link will give you 1 free month!

• Sketchbook to Style is also available as a book, if you prefer a reading!

• Might Could Make a Book: Two of my most popular online classes, taken by over 14,000 students, are now available together in book format! This book takes you through the entire process of writing, illustrating, and publishing a children’s picture book—including how to submit to traditional publishers or self-publish your own indie book!

+ 30% off Paid Substack Subscriptions!

Or perhaps you are a generous soul, a patron of the arts, an angel to indie artists! You can support my work for an entire year with a paid Substack subscription for $5/month or $50/year $35/year. The button below will give you 30% if you upgrade in the next two days! This discount will expire Thursday, July 25.

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Whether you support my work financially, artistically, emotionally, or whatever-else-ally, THANK YOU! Art is meant to be seen, read, and shared—it takes two!—and I am beyond thankful to each of you for giving my art a life.

I’ve been chuggin’ along for 12 years, and, like Jane Hirshfield, I hope to still be writing, drawing, and chasing questions for 30 more.

Thanks for being here y’all! ❤️

<3,
Christine

I often argue against labeling the art we make as Good or Bad. I believe there's something to be learned and gained from every piece of art we make—even the ones we don’t like.

But our judgment often creeps in anyways, so it's worth digging into how we respond to our art. So what makes you think your art is good or bad?

Calling a piece of art good is almost meaningless. It tells you very little about the art. Instead of asking if the piece of art looks good, here’s a different question to ask yourself: Was this piece of art successful?

But then, what makes a piece of art successful? Your answer to that question depends on two personal beliefs you may not know you have:

• What art is

• What art’s purpose is

There’s no right answer to these questions. They are beliefs, and which one you subscribe to can tell you a lot about your art and who you are as an artist. To figure out what your artistic beliefs are, let’s look at four aesthetic theories.

4 Theories for Judging Art

According to the branch of philosophy called Aesthetics, there are 4 main theories for judging whether a piece of art is successful: Imitationalism, Formalism, Instrumentalism, and Emotionalism.

Each of these theories answers the question “a piece of art is successful when…” differently. Chances are, you already believe in one of these theories, even if you've never heard of them! Realizing which theory resonates most with you can help you make crucial decisions with your art.

As you read through these four theories, try to see which theory fits best with your core beliefs!

1. Imitationalism

Art is successful when… it imitates reality.

An Imitationalist artist focuses on mimicking and representing real life. In a successful piece of art, the textures, light, shadows, human proportions, and perspective are all highly realistic, as if you could reach out and touch them.

2. Formalism

Art is good when… it masters the artistic elements and principles.

A Formalist artist focuses on an artwork's form or craft—the way it's made and what it looks like. In a successful piece of art, the visual features are most important: line quality, color, composition, and other artistic elements and principles.

3. Instrumentalism

Art is good when… it communicates a message.

An Instrumentalist artist focuses on context and message. A successful piece of art is an instrument to persuade the audience or provide commentary. It is often political, social, moral, or thought-provoking.

4. Emotionalism

Art is good when… it evokes an emotional response.

An Emotionalist artist focuses on the expression of emotion. A successful piece of art communicates an emotion, but more importantly, it pulls out an emotional reaction from the viewer.

So, What Makes Good Art to You?

Personally, I'm a mix of Emotionalism + Formalism. These two theories make sense to me because I was trained as a designer and love art principles like line, composition and color (formalism), but I also use my art as a way of processing and expressing my emotions (emotionalism).

My beliefs are farthest away from Imitationalism. I certainly believe it's technically impressive when art can imitate reality, but I have no desire to do so myself, and I don’t believe realism is the most important aspect of an artwork.

But that’s just me!

To find which theory (or a mix of theories) fits you best, you'll need to think about why you make art the way you do and what makes a piece of art good to you.

Which Theory Are You?

It's important to remember there is no right or wrong theory. Art is subjective, and judging whether art is good or bad is a matter of personal opinion. You may love something I don’t care for, and I may love something you don’t care for. That’s fine!

But realizing which theory you naturally gravitate to can help you recognize what you do or don't like about your own work. When we can see more clearly why we believe our art is good or bad, we use that knowledge to nudge our art more in the good (to us) direction.

So I’m curious, which art theory fits best with you? Let us know in the comments!

P.S. My brand new book, Might Could Make a Book is now available! If you’ve always wanted to write and/or illustrate your own picture book, learn more about the book here! Or you can buy it here!

If you’ve already bought it and started reading, thank you! And please leave a review! ❤️

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

I have a confession to tell you. I’ve begun writing poetry.

Yikes, I know. No one on the internet wants to read poetry! People want suspense-filled fantasy romance novels like Fourth Wing! (Which by the way, I’m not putting down—I just plowed my way through it and loved it.)

So why start writing poetry? I’m slowly realizing I have more breadth as an artist than I thought. I used to think of myself as an artist only in terms of drawing. I usually introduce myself as an “illustrator”. And while drawing will forever and always be my primary home, it’s dawned on me that I make a whole lot more than that. And that different types of artmaking can accomplish (or discover) different things.

I’ve been writing these weekly essays since 2017. Am I not a writer as well? Must an essay writer always write essays? What if, after 7 years of writing essays, the writing begins to morph into new forms? What if, just as my sketchbook drawing led me to create children’s picture books, my essay writing is leading me somewhere new as well?

From Prescriptive to Communicative

My first few years of writing essays were heavily focused on creativity and how we, as artists, could make more art or make art that felt more like our own. I suppose you could call those essays Prescriptive, although I was mostly trying to prescribe things to myself, not others. I wrote what I needed to hear. If I wrote a creative pep talk, it was because I was in a creative block and needed to hear a pep talk myself.

Over time, my essays shifted to be more personal. As I opened up and wrote more directly about my struggles with artmaking, my struggles with life began to seep into the essays as well. How could I write about one without also writing about the other? As Jane Hirshfield says,

“How do poems—how does art—work? Under that question, inevitably, is another: How do we?” –Jane Hirshfield

I think my first completely personal essay was the one about my miscarriage. Writing and sharing that piece was not a conscious or well-thought-out decision. Perhaps if I had been thinking straight, I would have written it but not shared it in this newsletter. After all, this is a newsletter about drawing and artmaking, not personal traumas. The internet pushes us to niche down—if you want to make a living on the internet, pick a lane and stay in it! So they say.

But, I shared it here anyway. I wrote that essay because I had to. In the depths of that moment, I knew I had to somehow communicate the darkness I was feeling. I had to pull it out of me or I was going to drown in it.

And after that, it was as if a wall had been broken down. I began writing more personal essays—pieces about my struggles with motherhood, my existential questions, and my search for spirituality. And I shared them all here in this publication.

All my writing has a home base in art, because my entire life has a home base in art. But the mode of writing shifted from prescriptive to communicative. I was writing to communicate my inner experience, probe the questions in my mind, and tug on the threads of my thoughts.

Did this cause me to lose subscribers? Yes! Most people would rather be told what to do (prescriptive writing) than read about the inner workings of a struggling artist/mother/human.

Did this cause me to take a blow on my income? Yes! Likewise, people will throw money at you if you say you can solve all their creative problems. Shelling out a few bucks to read about someone else’s journey to find meaning in life? Or paying a few dollars to watch the unabridged process of an artist flailing around on the page trying to figure out how the heck to paint a translucent jellyfish? Yeah… most people don’t want to pay for that.

Do I regret it and want to go back to trying to be a one-laned brand? No! It’s that simple. I feel more alive as an artist and more creatively energized right now than I ever have before. When I make my art, whether a drawing, an essay, a book, or a poem, it feels like me. It wasn’t always that way. But right now, I’m not trying to be anything for anyone or trying to do anything in a way that people will like. I’m not a polished brand with a cohesive suite of offerings. I make the things I want to make, and I strongly believe that’s how the best things are made. This is how I draw, like it or leave it. This is how I write, read it or don’t. I’m gonna keep making it.

And now, having fully moved from prescriptive to communicative, I believe I’m in the midst of another creative shift.

From Communicative to Contemplative

I’m currently reading the spectacular book Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World by Jane Hirshfield. In it, she says that “good art is a truing of vision, in the way a saw is trued in the saw shop, to cut more cleanly. It is also a changing of vision.”

Hirshfield talks throughout the book about the power of poetry, but almost everything she says applies to any type of art. Her main thesis is that poetry is not just about recording our inner experience or outer perception. It’s not just writing down how we feel or what we see. Instead, “it makes by words and music new possibilities of perceiving.” Art changes the way we see.

Poetry, Hirshfield says, offers a different way of knowing, a different way of discovering meaning. She calls poetry “a playable organ of perception.”

“Poems do not simply express. They make, they find, they sound (in both meanings of that word) things undiscoverable by other means.”

Each time we write something, draw something, make something, we are truing ourselves like a saw, “to cut more cleanly.” We are fine-tuning ourselves, opening ourselves to new modes of perception.

“This altered vision is the secret happiness of poems, of poets. It is as if the poem encounters the world and finds in it a hidden language, a Braille unreadable except when raised by the awakened imaginative mind.”

This then, the discovery of a hidden language, is where we enter the contemplative realm. Previously, my essays were communicative—I aimed to express my thoughts, my feelings, my experience. But more and more, my writing has become contemplative as well. It’s not about finding an answer or even expressing a concise thought. The contemplative goes beyond the self—beyond the I, me, my. It goes beyond telling. As Hirshfield so eloquently says, “heightened speech requires an equally intensified listening.”

The contemplative mode of writing involves not only writing but also listening. At first, I was trying to write essays in this contemplative way, but I’m beginning to think the essay is not meant to do that. Or at least, it’s not the ideal form to do so. But poetry! Poetry is the ultimate vehicle for artistic contemplation.

Poetry speaks, listens, and changes the way we see the world. It says one thing, but means so much more. It imbues the most ordinary things with beauty and meaning. And it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Poems, as Hirshfield says, “include a certain kind of tropism—poems lean toward increase of meaning, feeling, and being.”

“A poem plucks the interconnection of the experiencing self and all being. In poetry’s words, life calls to life with the same inevitability and gladness that bird calls to bird, whale to whale, frog to frog. Listening across the night or ocean or pond, they recognize one another and are warmed by that knowledge.”

Life calling to life. What a grand thing to reach for.

So, all that to say… I’ve been writing poetry. And I plan to sometimes share it here. I still draw in my sketchbook, I still write essays on creativity, and I still make books and classes sharing what I’ve learned. I do all these things. I am all these things. I refuse to stay in one lane.

Below you can read the poem I wrote, How to Approach a Tiger, alongside my MCDT drawing for this week. It was written the morning after a rough night when it took 3.5 hours (and lots of tears) to get my daughter to sleep. The poem basically wrote itself in my head while I was drawing the tiger below. I don’t claim the poem to be perfect, or even good, but when art makes itself, when it pours out so easily… it’s usually a sign that you’re heading in the right direction. I’ve learned to listen to that.

How to Approach a Tiger

I woke up this morning feeling like a tiger.
And not in a good way.

I felt angry and agitated and aggressive.
I lashed out and snapped my teeth.
All I wanted to do was brood alone
and lick my wounds.

How do you approach a vicious tiger?

Tiger, won’t you please sit down
for just a moment?
Sit here, relax,
you’ve had a hard night.

And once she sat,
(which took some time)
I looked at her.
And then I pulled out
my paper and palettes
and began to paint her.

I painted her eyebrows first.
They were working so hard
to hold up the burden of her anger.

Then I painted her eyes,
as they flashed and flared,
and I could tell they ached to
just
close.

Next, I painted her teeth,
those bared, pointed teeth,
hostile and ready to fight.

I painted her front legs,
strong and muscled,
veins pulsing with energy.

And then, I painted her long body,
arching upward into the sky,
exposing her soft, white underbelly.
She was surprised by that.

Her legs were next,
painted quickly as she stretched them out.
Spreading her toes,
extending her claws,
and then setting them down.

And last, her tail.
I painted her long, beautiful tail
as it gracefully curled beside her.

With my painting finished,
I set down my brush,
and reached out to her gingerly,
palm facing up.
She sniffed my fingers,
sighed,
and laid down her head.

I reached further still,
and with the soft pads of my fingers,
gently closed her eyes.

Thanks for reading, y’all. And an extra-special thank you to all my paid subscribers who have stuck with me through all my shifts and changes over the years. Your support and encouragement allow me make art my full-time job. I’d still make art even if no one paid for it, but it’s your support that gives me the time to do so and share it with the world. Truly, I’ll never be able to say thank you enough. ❤️

If you’d like to join these art angels and become a paid subscriber to help support my art, you can subscribe for 50% off over the next 48 hours. Thank you, thank you!

Get 50% off for 1 year

<3,
Christine

As many of y’all know, I didn’t go to art school. I knew, even at 18, that taking on that amount of debt to get a degree in a career not known for making boatloads of money was a bad idea. And so, I made the rational decision to attend a state university and major in graphic design. (Which was by the way, NC State, who just by the way, beat #2 Duke to go on to the semi-finals of the ACC men's basketball tournament tonight!)

Attending NC State was both A) a heck of a lot cheaper than art school and B) gave me a solid career option with actual earning potential. It was a smart choice (aided no doubt by my parents) and was definitely the right choice for me both then and now.

But after a few years of working in design, I started slowly creeping into the world of illustration and art. I started taking on fewer freelance graphic design projects and seeking out more illustration clients. I started drawing consistently and reading everything I could get my hands on. I studied and practiced and attended workshops and conferences. I realized that I didn’t need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to become an artist—I could craft my own art education.

And that is one of the best things about art—you don’t have to go to school to be an artist! You don’t need a degree or certification or anybody’s permission to start doing it. You only need a few art materials, time, and the motivation to practice.

And so, that’s what I did for years. I drew and drew and drew. But the thing that has helped me build (and continue!) my art education most is reading books. Books written by other artists about their art practice, advice, and experiences.

As self-taught artists, books are our best access to an art education. Online classes abound, and they can certainly be helpful (I’ve made a few), but books are what have overwhelmingly benefited me most. That’s partially why I’ve started remaking my previous online classes into books. Also, I just love making books!

In the back of my upcoming book, Might Could Make a Book (which is a remake of an online class!), I’ve included a series of extra resources including a Further Reading section with a list of books that have helped me most on my self-taught artist path. So today, I thought I’d share that list with you! The list printed in the book is all about picture books, but I’ve expanded the list below to encompass my entire art journey including creativity, drawing, writing, design, picture books, comics, poetry, storytelling, and spirituality + art. Together, these 67 books have molded me into the artist I am today!

🌟 Are there any art or creativity books you love or have impacted you, that you’d recommend? Comment below to let us know! 🌟

A Very Might Could Art School Reading List

Note: I’ve collected all these books together in one place in my Bookshop.org shop. Every purchase on Bookshop supports indie bookstores and purchasing a book from these links also gives me a small kickback. A few older books below were not available on Bookshop and I have linked to those on Amazon. I am not an affiliate on Amazon. I’ve also included links to any author’s Substack publications!

Might Could Bookshop

On Creativity

• Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland

• Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert (Check out ’s Substack )

• Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon (Check out ’s Substack )

• Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, By Austin Kleon

• What It Is, Lynda Barry

• The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd

• The Gifts of Imperfection, By Brené Brown

• Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk: And Other Truths About Being Creative, Danielle Krysa (Check out’s Substack )

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, Robert M. Pirsig

• Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam Grant (Check out ’s Substack )

• The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron

• Starting Point: 1979-1996, Hayao Miyazaki

On Drawing

• Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures, by Walt Stanchfield

• Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures, by Walt Stanchfield

• Picture This: How Pictures Work, Molly Bang

• Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, Ivan Brunetti

On Writing

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott

• The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

• Writing Picture Books, by Ann Whitford Paul

• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, William Zinsser

• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

• Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You, by Ray Bradbury

On Design

• Thinking with Type, Ellen Lupton (Check out’s Substack)

• Hand Job: A Catalog of Type, Michael Perry

• The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst

• Design Is Storytelling, Ellen Lupton

• Meggs' History of Graphic Design, Philip B Meggs

• Interaction of Color, Josef Albers

On Picture Books

(Many of the books here are now out of print —that’s one of the reasons I decided to write my own book on making picture books!)

• Writing Picture Books, by Ann Whitford Paul

• Caldecott and Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures, by Maurice Sendak

• Writing with Pictures, by Uri Shulevitz

• Words and Pictures, by Quentin Blake

• Illustrating Children’s Books, by Martin Salisbury

• Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, Leonard S. Marcus

• Tomfoolery!: Randolph Caldecott and the Rambunctious Coming-Of-Age of Children's Books, by Michelle Markel and Barbara McClintock

On Comics

• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, by Scott McCloud

• Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels, by Scott McCloud

• Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist, by Will Eisner

• Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, by Will Eisner

• Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (Check out ’s Substack

• Making Comics, Lynda Barry

On Poetry

• A Child’s Anthology of Poetry, by Elizabeth Hauge Sword

• A Child’s Book of Poems, by Gyo Fujikawa

• Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World, by Jane Hirshfield

• The Essential Rumi: A Poetry Anthology, Coleman Barks

• The Book of Qualities, J. Ruth Gendler

On Storytelling

• The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, by Jonathan Gottschall

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell

• Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels, by Scott McCloud

• How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from the Moth by multiple contributors

• The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better, Will Storr ( ’s Substack is about to start!)

On Spirituality + Art

• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chödrön

• The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff

• The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron

• Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Wassily Kandinsky

• Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, Leonard Koren

• No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh

• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice, Shunryu Suzuki

• Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, Jon Kabat-Zinn

• Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better, Pema Chödrön

• Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, Pema Chödrön

• Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion, Pema Chödrön

• Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, Lao Tzu and Ursula K. Le Guin

• Art and Faith: A Theology of Making, Makoto Fujimura

• Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, Susan Cain (Check out ’s Substack )

• Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, Madeleine L'Engle

That’s it! I hope these books help you on your art journey as much as they’ve helped me. I will update this list over time, so please share any art or creativity books you recommend with us below in the comments!

An art education never stops and I’m always looking for my next book!

<3,
Christine

I’ve been working very, very hard on my Might Could Make a Book book this week and have been doing basically nothing else from the time I drop Butterbean off at school to the time I pick her up. I fix my coffee, get Oni settled in on the bed for his nap, and then I sit at my desk and work until the very last minute when I stuff my face with whatever food I can grab, and then rush out the door to school pickup.

Doing this for a full week has had some consequences. The living room is piled with toys, my hair hasn’t been washed in… I don’t know how long, I either don’t take a shower or take the fastest shower known to man before I rush out the door, the dirty dishes are piling up, the sheets need to be washed, I’m still wearing my pajamas, Oni and I both are eating lunch later and later, I can’t seem to get up out of this chair even though I really have to pee, and I keep ruuuuuminating.

You know what all that sounds like on the surface? Depression! Trust me, I know. I’ve been there. It’s yuck.

But because I’ve been there, I also know how enormously different this feeling is. While the same symptoms are all here, there’s something different underlying them. Instead of a sense of hopelessness or dread simmering beneath my actions (or inactions), there’s a sense of excitement and anticipation. Instead of feeling alone, I feel connected. Connected to others, yes, but also connected to something bigger. In the words of Kacey Musgraves, I found a deeper well.

As I was working this week, this comic came into my head. I was thinking about the similarities between depression and creativity and I thought, Oh! It’s just like that old advertising slogan: “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.”

🎶 Maybe it’s crea-ti-vi-ty, maybe it’s depress-i-on! 🎶

Outwardly, it is probably hard to tell the difference. People with high-functioning depression can still get their work done and get by in life. The key to telling creativity and depression apart is that underlying feeling. What thoughts are fueling these choices?

I don’t have to be making this book. But I want to be making this book. I enjoy making this book, and I’m proud of this book. I feel excited to work on it each day. And when I emerge from my creative nest of sweatshirts and slippers and coffee and dry shampoo to run off to school pick up, I feel happy and fulfilled with what got done that day. I feel clear and light and ready to be fully present with Butterbean.

Notice those words: enjoy, proud, excited, happy, fulfilled, clear, light. Do those sound like Depression words? Words that weigh me down? They sound more like Creativity words to me. Words that lift me up. Words that lead to thoughts that lead to feelings that lead to actions.

I know this is a little burst of creativity, a little push from the creative source. So I’ll take it, and I’ll make art.

The dishes can wait.

MCDT Week 227: Maps 🗺️

This week in MightCouldDrawToday, we’re drawing Maps! We’ve already gotten some awesome Tolkien-inspired maps and knowledge from our resident GIS-expert, Craig! I also wanted to highlight the amazing artwork above by one of our MCDT hosts, Nick Harbaugh from last week’s Dryad theme. The luscious linework, the depth, the dribbling details, the stringy hair, the mushrooms through the eyeballs… it’s all so good! 😍

Come draw with us!

Thanks for reading y’all!

<3,
Christine

P.S. I really enjoyed creating this comic and am glad I took a little time out of working on my book to make it. I used to make comics like this a lot and dropped out of it as I began focusing on my writing practice. I hope to get back to more comics. :)

As an artist, it seems I’m always searching for connections. And I don’t mean networking or socializing. I mean connecting two ideas, two abstract concepts, by forcing them to sit with each other on a piece of paper. The dream is to effortlessly slide the two concepts together like puzzle pieces. But more often, it feels like stubbornly trying to jam one puzzle piece into another over and over until the cardboard edges start to fray, and then they really don’t fit together.

For the past two years, I’ve been (unknowingly at first, and then consciously) trying to connect two different concepts: art and spirituality. And by spirituality, I mean… well, I don’t really know what I mean. God, a higher power, the divine, the consciousness of the universe, the Supreme Being, being itself… trying to put a name to something like that feels like shoving together two puzzle pieces that almost fit (but don’t), but you can’t find the right piece anywhere, so you just leave those two together and hope no one notices the gaps.

Every time I write about art and spirituality, every time I attempt to tie the two together or find a common thread between them, I come a little closer. Not closer to an answer—I’ve since realized there are no answers in this conceptual space.

Maybe closer to a feeling, like the feeling you get when you finish a piece of art. In the creative space, there is no clear answer or definite signal for when a drawing is finished. You could go on creating a single piece of art, adding, removing, and editing for the rest of your life. Or you could, at some point, decide that it’s finished. That you’ve arrived at a point where it feels done.

I suppose that’s the feeling I’m searching for when trying to tie together my art and spirituality. The feeling that I may not have it all figured out, but at least I got these two little pieces to fit together. I don’t really expect to finish the whole puzzle, to empty the box and fit all the pieces together. If I had to bet, I’d say some of the pieces are lost under the couch and unreachable to us anyways. But I’m ok with that.

So why do it, then? Why spend so much time trying to tie together two disparate concepts that will, in all likelihood never be able to be tied together in a way that feels fully satisfying or complete? Why work on a problem that has no right answer?

I think the answer lies in the art I’ve seen, read, and heard from other artists. Through writers, poets, musicians, and illustrators, I’ve seen the possibilities. These artists have shown me that maybe what I’m striving for is less puzzle-ish, and more Play-doh-ish. Instead of thinking there’s one already existing puzzle connecting these two ideas in which I can fit all the pieces perfectly and objectively together, I should be thinking of it as two tubs of Play-doh in which it’s totally up to me how to combine them.

I can dump out these two concepts and squeeze them and mold them and feel them in my hands and eventually smush them together into one squishy, marbled ball of Play-Doh. Finishing a puzzle that I don’t even have all the pieces to is impossible. But smashing balls of Play-doh together? Well yeah, I can do that.

And I think that’s what these artists who create art that speaks to us have done. I recently came across the poem To Be Alive by the poet, Gregory Orr, which to me is a perfect example of him squishing these two balls of art and spirituality together in his own way:

“To Be Alive

To be alive: not just the carcass
but the spark.

That’s crudely put, but. . . 
If we’re not supposed to dance,
why all this music?”

–by Gregory Orr

It’s brilliant! It’s not an answer, but somehow it represents both concepts and marbles them together into one new, original thing. Sufjan Stevens too, repeatedly shows it’s possible. Gregory Orr and Sufjan Stevens have grabbed onto the thread between art and the divine, and I want to too!

I am, of course, not an internationally recognized and award-winning poet or musician. But you never know what somebody can do.

So anyways, that’s where I’m at as I continue this essay series on The Art of Wisdom. This series has evolved a lot over the past year, and so I’m changing the subtitle that I use in the introduction: “The Art of Wisdom, a study of art from the world’s wisdom traditions my ongoing search for the connection between art and wisdom.”

Who knows what smushy Play-doh creation will come out of it next?

Lastly, I’ll leave you with one more poem that connects art and the divine in a way that feels squishy-good to me, this one by the 13th-century Sufi mystic poet, Rumi:

“I know you're tired but come, this is the way...

In your light, I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you,
but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”
–Rumi

We MightCouldDrawToday!

I’ve been loosening up and drawing more in my sketchbook these past few months and I credit that mostly to MCDT! It’s one of my favorite things in the whole world how Nick, Nikki, or I can give y’all a prompt, often just one word (like “Frogs”) and at the end of the week we have a whole set of completely different interpretations and beautiful pieces of artwork created from that random theme! It’s inspiring and amazing.

Echoing Gregory Orr, if we’re not supposed to draw, why all the amazing visual inspiration around us? Why. All. The. Frogs?

Come draw with us this week!

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

Hey y’all,

I’m finally back to my desk this morning after a week of snow, ice, and school cancellations! Overall, we got almost 10 inches of snow which made for some nice snowballs, snowmen, and sledding. We drank hot chocolate, made cookies, and watched Minions more times than I care to admit. So, it was a fun week, but also draining and I’m happy to be back in my studio writing and drawing.

Every week Butterbean and I go to the library and pick out new books to read. Last week (before all the snow!) she picked out How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird. This book is based on a poem by Jacques Prevert (listed as the author), and translated and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein.

And by the way, before you go thinking Butterbean has impressive taste in books for a four-year-old… she has also been on a Marvel book binge, reading books about the X-Men and the Avengers over and over and over, with me cringing inside at every page. But I try to hold to the philosophy that I shouldn’t deny her (or judge) the books she wants to read. Reading is reading and reading is good!

Anyways, back to the book at hand.

How To Make A Portrait Of A Bird

(AKA: How to Make a Piece of Art)

I wasn’t sure what to expect with How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird, but it thoroughly surprised and delighted me. The story is loosely about a boy attempting to paint a bird but goes much deeper than technical instructions—at its heart, it is a book about the creative process. It’s a story of an artist finding and following their inspiration to create a piece of art.

The book begins with a boy sleeping in bed when he wakes up to a bird singing in his window. He runs out and returns with a canvas and paints. I see these first few pages as the Inspiration stage of the creative process. The boy glimpses a glimmer of an idea (the bird) and is inspired to try to capture it on canvas.

The book then instructs the boy to “first paint a cage with an open door”. After also drawing a bowl of bird seed in the cage, the book says, “Then take the picture to a garden… or a park… or a forest.”

Next, “Put the picture under a tree. Hide behind the tree. Don’t speak. Don’t move.” Here, I see the Exploration part of the creative process. This is where the idea needs to be nailed down, narrowed down, and found. What is the idea really? How is this idea different than other ideas? How will he proceed in turning the idea into art?

It’s interesting here, that the book tells the boy to hide and not speak to attract and capture the idea. It’s that idea again, that we have to get out of our own way to discover the artwork that wants to be made. We have to silence our self-critical voice, get out of our head, open our minds, and enter a new way of thinking to be able to hear and see something new.

And that can take a long time.

The book states, “Sometimes the bird comes quickly. But it can just as well take years before deciding. If the bird doesn’t come right away, don’t be discouraged. Wait. Wait years if necessary.” And the boy waits. Through night and day, seasons and storms, he patiently waits. This shows the unpredictability and the frustration of the Exploration part of the creative process.

After portraying the boy as an old man surrounded by spider webs, the bird begins to move. The book says, “When the bird comes, if it comes, remain absolutely silent.” Again, that idea of opening our mind, setting aside our agendas and desires, and instead listening for what the idea is trying to say.

Once the bird flies into the cage, “gently close the door with your brush.” Then the book says to erase the cage and paint a tree, “with the prettiest branch for the bird.”

“Paint the green leaves and the summer breeze. Paint the smell of the sunshine and the flowers, and the songs of the bees and the butterflies.” The boy has now entered the Creation phase of the creative process.

The boy has discovered the idea and heard what it wants to say. He is now no longer silent: he sets to work giving a voice to the idea, translating it’s message to paint and canvas.

He is deep in the zone, painting not only colors and shapes (green leaves, flowers, and butterflies), but also sensations (the summer breeze and the songs of bees) and perhaps most importantly, feelings (the smell of sunshine). How does one paint the smell of sunshine? It’s something that cannot be described in words, but don’t you think the illustrator has captured it in the painting above? The boy is surrounded by the idea, living and breathing in the idea, touching and feeling the idea, allowing the idea to speak through his brush.

But sometimes, after the ecstasy of the Creation phase wears off, and we return to the real world, we realize what we created was… not so good after all. Sometimes we get lost. We lose sight of the idea or we allow our own desires and judgemental nature to take hold. The book says, “Then wait for the bird to sing. If it doesn’t sing, don’t be sad. You did your best.”

This is where the boy enters the Valley phase of the creative process. He made it past the initial inspiration and excitement of beginning a new piece of art. But now here he is in the middle of it, and the bird still is not singing. He thought he was making progress, but now he’s not so sure. He doesn’t feel the painting is complete or good, and he has no idea what to do about it. Does he quit? Does he start over? Was it a bad idea all along? There is no solid answer.

But sometimes, if a good idea was there in the beginning, and if we can listen to it carefully, and follow it faithfully, and get ourselves out of our own way…

Well, sometimes the bird sings.

And the transcendent bliss of hearing your idea sing cannot be overstated. The idea you created from not only colors, lines, and shapes, but also sensations, feelings, and experience. You’ve pulled something from the immaterial world to the material world and given it life. You have created a piece of art.

As the book says, “If the bird sings, it’s a very good sign.”

The book ends with the boy carrying the painting back to his room. He hangs the canvas up and falls asleep with a contented smile on his face. Once he’s asleep, the bird flies off the canvas and out the window: “Tomorrow you can paint another one.” And the next day, the creative process begins again.

The Search for Birdsong

How to Paint the Portait of a Bird is truly a lovely book, and if you’re a parent to a little one, I highly recommend checking it out.

The Kirkus review of sums the book up well: “…depicts artistic endurance as the boy waits through passing seasons for his bird to come. With irresistible wit, this makes its point that, with dedication, art and creativity are infinitely renewable.”

Making art is hard. More importantly than skill or technique, the creative process requires endurance and dedication, persistence and patience. It takes a lot out of us to create a piece of art. But if we can stick with it, the creative process gives back to us more than it takes.

Every day I make a piece of art is a good day, even on the rainy days when I feel covered in spider cobwebs. The infinite search for birdsong is as good a purpose as I’ve found.

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

Hi there!

I hope you had a lovely Christmas/holiday/break and are slowly getting back into your daily routines. Butterbean just started back at school on Wednesday, so it’s been slow going for me.

My first essay of the past few New Years has been about choosing a Word of the Year to help set some intentions for the upcoming year, while also reflecting on the previous year.

In 2021, I tried to branch out and Grow upward.
In 2022, I tried to dig down to the roots and go Deeper.
In 2023, I tried to zoom out to Harmonize what matters most.

Last year I continued my trajectory of improving my overall well-being and I’m feeling good at the start of 2024. Here’s a quick look back at last year in Might-Could-Land:

• I started The Art of Wisdom essay series and wrote 13 installments

• I kept working on my We Are Jellyfish book and shared 11 process posts

• I allowed myself to take a break when things started to get too overwhelming

• I launched the Sketchbook to Style book, which I had been wanting to do for years!

• I’m still off social media! I quit all social media in April 2022 and never went back, so I’ve been off for over a year and a half now. No regrets—one of the best decisions I ever made. (Join us in our Substack Chat for a more low-key way to share your art!)

• I’m still not drinking! I quit drinking alcohol in August 2022 and also never went back, so I’ve been alcohol-free for a year and four months—that’s 504 days!

• I became even more involved in my local community. I’m still serving on the two local boards I’m on and I got to help design two (about to be 3!) exhibits for the local children’s museum. My family also became members at a church here in town and have somehow already joined 3 groups within it!

• I got lost artistically but am finding my way back. I struggled A LOT with the final art of my We Are Jellyfish book, but I finally refound my guiding star and have some ideas for how to continue.

• We relaunched Might Could Draw Today! With the help of two long-time artist-friends we’re back to our weekly drawing themes right here in Substack Chat!

• I had a breakthrough in my quest to define what artists do (and why we do it): Artists don’t show us how to live—they show us what it’s like to live.

• Oh yeah, and I discovered the secret of life.

After reading through the recap list I wrote last year, and then writing this recap list today, I’m seeing some themes. In 2021, I learned that struggle and difficulty are just a part of life. In 2022, I slowly accepted that and realized “perfect balance” in life is impossible. In 2023, I slowly let go of my plans for what could be and my regrets of what was and found myself pleasantly sinking into what is.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying I don’t have goals for this year and my life in general. Of course I do. But I hold them so much more lightly then I have in years past. Because I know now that life is unpredictable and the future is unknowable. I might plan to work 5 hours on my book tomorrow, but then the school calls and all of a sudden Butterbean is home sick on the couch and I want to be with her and take care of her instead. We have to allow for some wiggle room and be adaptable to what is happening right at this moment.

Of course, I’m human, and I don’t do that 100% of the time. I still find myself sometimes getting swept up by future-thinking or past-ruminating. For example, towards the end of the year, I started to get very frustrated with my book. I had thoughts of: ‘I need to go live in a secluded cabin by myself so I can finish this book in the next month!’ And also: ‘I have wasted so much time on this book and haven’t made any progress at all and I should just burn it all!’

Well, neither of these mindsets are realistic or helpful in actually creating a piece of art.

But the difference last year is that I was able to be aware of those thoughts so much quicker than before, sometimes immediately after thinking them. And the awareness allowed me to do something about them instead of giving in to their anxious-depressiveness. Usually that meant taking a break. Spending time with Butterbean, going on a walk, eating a snack, anything to ground myself away from feeling I was in a creative catastrophe (because of course I wasn’t, I was merely in the creative process).

Anyways, I suppose I should get to the point. My word of the year this year is Unknowing.

In previous years, I’ve begun the year subtly thinking, ‘Oh, now I’ve got this figured out and so now I’m going to do this and this and this!’ But upon reflecting on that year the next January, I inevitably realize ‘Ha, I thought I knew what I was doing but actually I was kind of wrong and this is what I’m going to do this year!’

So basically what I’m saying is that I know now that I know nothing. And duh, I’m not the first person who’s realized that: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucious, Lao Tzu, Albert Einstein, and who knows who else has said this before. But I feel I’ve internalized it this year, and I think, when used with an optimistic view, it could be a solid word of intention for 2024.

In January, I usually make some changes, schedules, and deadlines for the year. This year, I’m not doing that. Because who knows what could happen! But I do have some loosey-goosey goals:

• Work on We Are Jellyfish

• Work on turning my Picture Books I and II classes into a book (similar to Sketchbook to Style)

• Draw in my sketchbook

You’ll notice, those aren’t goals that can be accomplished and finished. My goal is just to work on these things—I have no idea how much I’ll be able to get done in a year. Who knows?! I know nothing! But I’m coming into this year with the mindset of just slowly chipping away at those goals, as time and life allow, and at least I’ll make a little bit of progress on projects that matter to me.

What Happenin’ in this Substack!

Lastly, here’s a quick summary of how I Might Could Do That! is currently set up going into 2024. Like last year, I aim to send one essay or book process post every week, rotating between the two as I wish.

(🆓) Free subscribers get 50% of my writings, while (🔒) paid subscribers get 100%. (Which psst… is 50% off if you upgrade by the end of January!)

• 🎨 Might Could Essays: Essay content varies, but it all revolves around how to live as an artist, mom, and human being. Current series: The Art of Wisdom.

• 📚 Might Could Make a Book: Sharing the process behind making my in-progress book. Current book: We Are Jellyfish. About to start: Making Picture Books based on my online courses on writing and illustrating PBs.

• ✏️ Might Could Draw Today: Might Could Draw Today (MCDT) is an initiative aimed to gently encourage us to make time for drawing, within a supportive and uplifting environment of artists from around the world. A new theme is posted by me or friends in our Substack Chat every Monday!

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In 2021, I tried to branch out and Grow upward.
In 2022, I tried to dig down to the roots and go Deeper.
In 2023, I tried to zoom out and Harmonize what matters most.
In 2024, I’m contentedly sinking into Unknowing.

“Opening, closing the Gate of Heaven,
can you be like a bird with her nestlings?
Piercing bright through the cosmos,
can you know by not knowing?”

–Tao Te Ching, Ursula K. Le Guin translation

Thanks for reading! Do you have a word of intention for this year? I’d love to hear what you’ve got up your sleeve for 2024!

<3,
Christine

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I’m a big Sufjan Stevens fan, but until recently I somehow missed his 2020 album, The Ascension. The album was written alone in his apartment at the height of the pandemic and was a project of wrestling with his spirituality and faith. Many of his songs over the years have had clear religious themes: From the Mouth of Gabriel, The Transfiguration, and of course his 100+ Christmas songs.

But this album is different.

In an interview, Sufjan said this about the album:

“I think at some point, I realized that my problems were no longer personal, or my personal problems were no longer at the forefront of my mind and my experience. And I started to see my problems are universal. It's really not about me. I am just the messenger.”

Which reminds me of what the writer James Baldwin once said: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

Sufjan continues:

“The Ascension and the transformation from the physical to the spiritual, for me, is [the] process of sublimation of consciousness. And I kind of wanted to use that process to disassociate and ascend away from myself and the world, the corruption and crisis and chaos around me to make better sense of it. To get out of my head and get out of my mind and get out of my fear.

“I started to ask myself, ‘What if our problems aren't natural or actual, but metaphysical?’ Or what if, at least, the solution to the problems were better understood on a spiritual level? I think that the songs [on The Ascension] are asking bigger questions, like, why are we here? What is it all for? What is our purpose? What is our function? Are we doing the work that we're called to do? I guess in some ways I'm trying to take into task all the things around me that I started to distress, including myself.”

So what is the work that Sufjan believes we are called to do?

“Feed your soul and speak new life into those around you. Give each other love, respect and sacrifice. Relinquish all the old habits, all the old ways of thinking and doing, all former practices—‘business as usual’—and bring new life to the world. This is our calling.”

But how can art bring new life to the world? I think of it similarly to James Baldwin again:

“…it is almost our only hope — because only an artist can tell, and only artists have told since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die; what it is like to be glad.” –James Baldwin

Artists don’t show us how to live—they show us what it’s like to live. They show us what it’s like to struggle, wrestle, and grieve, to fail and fall down. They don’t show us how to struggle best or most effectively or even how to get out of it. Instead, artists reveal a more important truth: that suffering is an unavoidable part of living. That stress, sorrow, grief, and heartache are universal problems.

But through the act of creating and sharing their art, they also show us the nature of hope. They remind us that even in the dark, sparks of light can be found created.

So what about those of us who consider ourselves artists? Why would we do that? Why would we confront our suffering even more deeply? Why do we spill our guts out into the world for all to see?

It’s definitely not because we know how to do these things (unless you’re talking about failing, and then, yes, I do know how to do that). Certainly, when we’ve fallen down to the bottom of the well, we do not feel we know how to get back up.

I think we make our art because we’re the ones who need to hear these messages the most. We are not writing instructions for others, doling out advice on how to overcome difficulties. We are drawing/painting/singing/making/writing to ourselves. We are writing what we need to hear.

And then, in an act of maybe-courage and maybe-desperation, we send that art out into the world, hoping there just might could be someone out there in the universe who feels the same way we do, and that, through our art, for just one brief moment, we can be two connected humans, hand-in-hand, pulling each other back up again.

Thanks for reading, y’all.

I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off to be with family for Christmas and will be back writing the first week of January.

We are still drawing weekly over in MightCouldDrawToday, which will continue throughout December. There were some BEAUTIFUL stained glass drawings last week, and this week’s theme is Cozy. Come draw with us!

Hope you have a lovely holiday and thank you all for being here!

<3,
Christine

Hey y’all,

This is my sketchbook update, to share some things I’ve been drawing during my break from writing. So, to keep my promise to myself, I am consciously not spending time molding this into a cohesive essay right now, but I did want to share something that’s been ratt…

Read more

This year, I have written more than I have drawn. I enjoy writing—it allows me to explore concepts and refine my opinions and beliefs more deeply than drawing. Or at least differently. But I think, through all this writing, that I’ve gotten sucked into a bit of an intellectualizing mindset. I’ve made simple things complex, confused myself, and just given myself a massive headache.

And so, the revival of Might Could Draw Today comes at the perfect time for me. I need to step back, remember the core of what I do, and not make everything so dang complicated and big and Important.

Last week, I started reading The Tao of Pooh, which my MCDT co-host Nick told me to read like 2 years ago and I am just now getting around to. (A belated thanks, Nick!) And yes, the book is just what it sounds like: it explains Taoism through the world of Winnie the Pooh. And what-do-ya know, that book is telling me the same message: simplify.

As explained by Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh:

“So here we are, about to try to explain P’u, the Uncarved Block. In the classic Taoist manner, we won’t try too hard or explain too much, because that would only Confuse things, and because it would leave the impression that it was all only an intellectual idea that could be left on the intellectual level and ignored. Then you could say, ‘Well, this idea is all very nice, but what does it amount to?’ So instead, we will try to show what it amounts to, in various ways.”

That really spoke to me as an artist, as someone who has been exploring what art can do that thinking/talking cannot, and as someone who has been struggling for what feels like an eternity to finish my We Are Jellyfish book. Somehow during the book-making process, I started confusing myself, complicating the project, and making it all into a BIG DEAL. I was trying to force outcomes and doing a lot of thinking about and talking about and trying to make nice ideas amount to something more. I was trying to make the book on an intellectual level. And I was acting more like a scholar (or perhaps Rabbit or Owl from Winnie-the-Pooh) than an artist.

“Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.” –Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh

I’m gonna be honest with you: I’ve grown bored of my jellyfish book. This month I found myself not wanting to work on it, confused about whether any of it is any good, and often just wanting to throw the whole thing in the trash. Burn it all in a bonfire!

I’m being rash. I won’t do that.

But this feeling must be trying to tell me something. Nobody makes a good book from a place of boredom and frustration. It’s hard to know, when making art, when you should push through and when you should just stop.

“The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard—one that thinks too much.” –Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh

I think I am at a moment when I should stop. The Americanized personality in me immediately says: “No, no, no! You better use your willpower and discipline and be productive with your time! Try harder! Push! You’ve been working on this book for too long and you just need to power through and finish it!” [Please do read that last part in the 80’s/90’s Tekken video game voice.]

But y’all, I’ve been doing that, and it’s not working. So, instead of listening to the narrator of an ultra-violent video game, perhaps I should instead listen to a voice who seems more content with life: a lovable, cuddly bear.

“The essence of the principle of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed.” –Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh

I think, what I need right now, is to write less and draw more. And specifically, to draw for the fun of it. Not to create a “good” book or communicate something “important” or present a subject in the “best” way. But instead, to draw just to draw. To draw pointless things that have no meaning, to draw for no specific reason, to draw things that I will draw and then never think about again… to draw without thinking at all!

In other words, I need to focus on my sketchbook practice, which has fallen out since I began working so much on my book. For now, I’m going to pause working on We Are Jellyfish and writing long essays. And I’m just going to draw.

“When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is fun.” –Benjamin Hoff in The Tao of Pooh

So here I am, at the end of the year, trying to discard some of the things that get in the way of the creative spirit. Trying to turn off my Tekken voice, close my mouth, and listen to the bear who seems to know some things. Trying to refind myself creatively. To remember who I am as an artist, and how I create the art that feels like me. The art that wants to be made. The art that’s fun to make, and often makes itself, without much thinking and struggling from my Rabbit-brain.

For the next month or more, I’ll be focusing solely on drawing, mostly with MCDT prompts. I would very much love for you to join me and draw with us! New MCDT prompts are announced every Monday in the Chat. I’ll still share some sort of weekly-ish update through my Substack newsletter, but it will be less writing and talking and more drawing and showing!

Come draw with us and maybe you’ll rediscover yourself and your art as well. At the very least, we’ll be reminded of that simple and mysterious secret: life is fun.

“To know the Way,
We go the Way;
We do the Way
The way we do
The things we do.
It's all there in front of you,
But if you try too hard to see it,
You'll only become Confused.

I am me,
And you are you,
As you can see;
But when you do
The things that you can do,
You will find the Way,
And the Way will follow you.”
–Pooh, in The Tao of Pooh

Come draw with us!

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

I ended my last Art of Wisdom essay with the question: if we go somewhere else when we are totally immersed in the creative process… where is it that we go?

So now I’m supposed to tell you the answer, right?

Well… first, I thought I’d return to my introduction to this series from almost a year ago, the essay Exploring the Big Life Questions Through Art. In that piece, I explained the context of this series, which was partially spurred by questions of life and death and meaning after my miscarriage. Some of the questions I asked included: “Why did this happen? How do I make sense of death? What is the purpose of living and loving if there is also dying and separation?”

But now, after almost a year of opening myself up to those questions and recording my journey to answer them, my whole view of the concept of questions and answers is changing.

Lao Tzu and Ursula K. Le Guin

In 1997, the writer Ursula K. Le Guin, of science-fiction novel fame, translated the Tao Te Ching into a fresh English version of the 2,500-year-old Chinese Taoist text.

The Tao Te Ching is a series of succinct poems describing The Way and how we can follow The Way. Far from concrete instructions, its language is poetic and cryptic. It’s also filled with paradoxes—the pairing of two irreconcilable concepts—such as: “useful emptiness,” “dim brightness,” and “doing by not doing.”

Here’s another good one: “The perfect square lacks corners.”

Like, what?

But the point of these paradoxes is not to confuse us and make our heads hurt. The paradoxes are meant to make us think about these big, abstract concepts in a big, abstract way. If we try to work out the paradox with our logical brain, with our reason, trying to solve it like a puzzle… well, it just doesn’t work. There’s no real way to reconcile two irreconcilable things. And there are some questions that just don’t have answers.

But, if we can let go of our logical brain and use a different mode of thinking, if we can try to sit with the paradox, and let it just be, we can begin to accept it as the way things are. (Which, by the way… is what Tao means. Tao can be defined as The Way as in, The Way Things Are.)

Le Guin says that writing about these existential topics in an abstract, poetic, and even paradoxical way is necessary:

“[Lao Tzu is] explaining a profound and difficult truth here, one of those counterintuitive truths that, when the mind can accept them, suddenly double the size of the universe.” –Ursula K. Le Guin

We try to explain abstract things in concrete words, we try to answer fluid questions with rigid answers, and we try to name nameless things because we’re human and that’s what we do. But the first two lines of The Tao Te Ching are:

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
–The Tao Te Ching, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

So we search for answers to our impossible questions and instead uncover impossible paradoxes. What the heck are we supposed to do with all these paradoxes? We search again for the answer: how do we resolve them?

Le Guin says these questions and paradoxes “must be pondered and brooded over.”

It’s obvious how Le Guin chooses to do this—she is an artist and a writer and uses the creative process. Her novels are all manifestations of her pondering and brooding of deep questions. The stories she writes don’t proclaim answers, but they reveal truths. In her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin writes:

“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” ―Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)

Le Guin writes stories. And what could be better to ponder impossible questions and inconceivable mysteries than stories? What could be a better method of discovering and sharing wisdom with humans who think in words than stories?

All the world’s religions know this. The Mahabharata and Ramayana epics of Hinduism, the Jataka Tales of Buddhism, and the Jesus parables of Christianity all aim to communicate truth through stories. Instead of responding to our questions with concrete instructions, we are offered stories in which, as Le Guin says, “the images are charged, rich in implications.”

Instead of telling us what to think, these stories allow us to discover how to think for ourselves. Instead of laying out an explicit answer, the story implies a direction to look in. It suggests an answer in an open-ended way, forcing us to participate in the story and develop our own interpretation. We may not fully understand what the story means. But we know what it’s about.

And the amazing thing is that, as artists, we get to participate in this process at an even deeper level. We can go beyond being a reader or viewer, and step into being a creator. We can begin with a question, and “ponder and brood” as Le Guin said, and sit with it, inhabit it, accept it, and come to some deeper sense of knowing. Le Guin describes her books:

“…not as a vehicle for a message, but as an exploration, a voyage of discovery resulting in something I didn’t know before I wrote it.”

Yeah, Sure, OK… But I Still Wanna Know: Where Do We Go When We Make Art? How Do We Live With Death? Why Are We Here? And What the Heck is the Meaning of Life!?

Well, what am I really looking for with these questions? Do I really think there’s an answer to them? And if someone could give me a concise one-sentence answer, do I really think it would help?

Or do I not need to the know answer at all? Can I know without knowing? Can I accept the counterintuitive truth, the paradox, the unanswerable question? And is, perhaps, the best way to do that through the creative process—through story, poetry, and art?

And so, that’s where I’m at. For today, I’m answering my questions with a story: a story from Douglas Adams’ science-fiction novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, super-intelligent beings in the past built a supercomputer called Deep Thought to give them the answer to the “Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything.” After 7.5 million years, Deep Thought spits out the answer: “42”. Understandably, this answer is disappointing to the beings, because well, it makes no sense. Deep Thought responds, “I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” So the beings of course say, “Can you just please tell us the Question?” Deep Thought says no, but that he can build the computer that can:

“A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate—yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called… The Earth.”

What if we’re living out the Great Question? What if an artistic suggestion is more powerful than an explicit answer? What if the “voyage to discovery” as Le Guin says, is the point? What if the question reveals more than the answer?

Douglas Adams’ story is not an answer. Ursula Le Guin’s stories are not answers. The epics, sagas, and parables of the world’s wisdom traditions are not answers. A story—even the greatest story ever told—cannot give us an answer. But as Le Guin translates on the very first page of the Tao Te Ching,

“If you see it rightly, it contains everything.”

This Week’s Art Inspiration

My illustration at the top of this essay was inspired by the Dance of Death by Michael Wolgemut, from The Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Christine

Welp, it took ten essays of wandering around, but I finally feel like I’m zeroing in on a more solid direction for this series. In my last Art of Wisdom essay, I wrote about the possibility that developing an artistic way of seeing the world is the whole point of making art. That with each drawing, painting, song, or whatever piece of art we make, we are in the process of becoming.

But as always, these kinds of questions don’t lead to answers—they just lead to deeper questions. So I had a new thread to follow: If we artists are in the process of becoming… well, what is it that we’re becoming?

I’ve been thinking and writing about what I call the Artistic Mindset for years now. So I can easily rattle off the many beneficial qualities and abilities that artists have or need to have to make art: the ability to slow down and quiet the mind, to be receptive to new ideas, to be willing to experiment through trial and error; to be comfortable with the unknown, to have the desire to communicate something, to be able to trust your intuition and follow your gut, to hold on to a sense of wonder and curiosity and let it be your compass, and to know how to reconnect your mind, hands, and heart to work in tandem together.

Utilizing that artistic mindset allows us to listen to the artwork and what it wants (not what we want) and steward that into being. We have to drop out of ourselves, get our ego/identity/wants/desires/wishes/doubts/fears/aversions/etc out of the way, tap into something so much bigger than our tiny human problems, and allow the artwork to manifest itself on the page.

In other words: every time we create a piece of art, we practice dropping out of ourselves and we experience falling into something bigger. We transcend our normal daily life and zoom out to something beyond. We experience the sublime.

Maybe I’ve lost you. Maybe you’re saying, “Whoa, Christine’s gone totally woo-woo, no thanks.” And I get it. I would have lost myself here, reading this, even just a year ago. But stay with me for a moment: try to think of how you feel when you’re totally in the zone, creating a piece of art.

What does that feel like? How would you describe that sensation of being totally caught up in the creation of something new? Those moments when the marks on the page flow seamlessly out of your pen, the artwork seems to make itself, and everything just works and feels right and good?

This clip from the Pixar movie Soul, about a jazz musician, perfectly captures that feeling of transcendence during the creative process:

That, that, THAT! That’s what I’m talking about!

In the scene, when Joe plays the piano—after he lets go of his doubts and fears and drops out of himself—he closes his eyes and goes… somewhere else. He’s no longer sitting in a jazz club in New York surrounded by other people. He enters another realm of existence, another plane of reality, another level of consciousness. I know that sounds grandiose, and woo-woo, and totally whack! But I just don’t know how else to express it in words. How would you?

So now, so now, so now. One question leads to the next: if we go somewhere else when we are totally immersed in the creative process…

…where is it that we go?

Thanks for reading! I got more drawin’ and thinkin’ to do!

<3,
Christine