I’ve always been drawn to activities that reward patience. Since childhood, I’ve loved arts and crafts and can happily spend hours absorbed in a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. Looking back, I can see that I’ve always found comfort in slowly building something, one small piece at a time.
Years later, during group therapy for survivors of domestic abuse, I was introduced to mindfulness for the first time. As someone who had lived with anxiety from a young age, I experienced something unexpected. Through creative therapy sessions, I found moments of calm that felt genuinely transformative. Those sessions became something I looked forward to every week.
Several years later, during another particularly difficult chapter in my life, I found myself longing for that same feeling again. At first I explored painting, but although I enjoyed it, I often felt frustrated by the gap between the image I had in my mind and what appeared on the canvas.
Everything changed when I discovered mindful drawing and, with it, a completely different way of creating.
What began as a simple creative exercise quickly became something much more profound. I was captivated by the sensory rhythm of repetitive mark-making and amazed that something so simple could gradually evolve into richly detailed compositions that I could never have planned from the outset.
Drawing became an unfolding mystery. Rather than trying to control the outcome, I allowed each line to respond to the last, trusting the work to emerge naturally over hours of quiet attention. In those moments, I often lose all sense of time, completely absorbed in the process of watching each piece slowly reveal itself. That process continues to fascinate me today.
Now my practice explores repetition, intuition, attention and emergence. Each drawing is built slowly, one line at a time, creating intricate compositions that invite the viewer to pause, look closely and experience a similar sense of grounding.
Somewhere along the way, I realised I wasn’t simply making art. I was learning to trust uncertainty, to slow down and to find peace in not needing all the answers.
As my confidence grew, I realised I wanted to share this experience with others. That led me to develop mindful drawing workshops and establish Mindful Arts Hub CIC, creating welcoming spaces where people can experience the same creative freedom I discovered through drawing. My workshops aren’t about learning to draw perfectly, they’re about slowing down, paying attention and discovering the quiet satisfaction that can come from making one mark at a time.
