I’ve started sketching Scotland and it’s helping to quash my lockdown anxiety…

With lockdown in full force here again in Scotland and a bit of time off on my hands this month, I decided to do a wee sketch a day of Scotland since around the second week of January 2021 whilst I’m sitting here at home. In a way it’s been reminding me of places I’ve been and where I’d like to go and re-visit in Scotland. Some sketches have literally been wee quick 10 minute jobs with a biro pen. Others have taken much longer and involve other materials… In all of them I must admit I definitely need more practice and to re-learn some old techniques I learned in my younger days when I was more well practiced at being arty!

The main reason I have started sketching though was that I was getting a bit anxious at being so cooped up during lockdown here in Scotland. I remembered that as a kid, sketching and painting used to quell a bit of anxiety I had then, so I decided to give it a go again and it’s probably the happiest I’ve felt in a long while just sitting in my house and drawing! Seriously, I highly recommend it if you’re sitting about with nothing to do or feeling bored or a bit like tearing your hair out! The motion of even a basic amount of panting I find very calming and the act of drawing takes my attention off the fact I can’t leave my house right now as I’m too busy concentrating on the art work to really think about anything else.

I’ve been enjoying myself so much with it in fact, that I’ve resolved to keep this up as an on-going thing! Even though not every sketch has worked out and I definitely feel I need to improve, I’m posting my daily sketches of Scotland at the moment on my Instagram channel @travelsincaledonia. If you’d like to keep up to date with them then please do find me over there, although I may also create a sketchbook tab on here if I do enough of them…

Below are some of them sketches I’ve already shared over on Instagram: