If you’re pressed for time, I’ll give you the short answer early: I draw because I can’t not.
And yes, I have plenty of better things to do, but I have drawn ever since I could hold a pencil and I don’t see that ending anytime soon. Sure, I’ve gone through periods of drawing less, but I always find my way back to it.
When I was a kid, I thought I’d grow up to be a cartoonist. I cut my teeth on Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes and dreamed of being the next Davis or Watterson. Then there was my animation phase. Pixar was becoming a big thing, and I since cartooning wasn’t working out, that would be the ticket. Shortly after I quit animation school (after 3 months) I decided Children’s books was the utopian occupation my soul longed for.
In case you didn’t know, I have accomplished precisely none of these things. And yet, miraculously, I don’t consider myself a failure. I turns out I just didn’t really know why I loved to draw in the first place and I was looking for a justifiable reason (preferably one that paid me) to keep doing it.
So why do I keep doing it?
Certainly not for fame.
Definitely not for money.
Probably not because it makes me popular (though, I admit, I don’t hate having a modest instagram following).
The best I can figure is, I draw because I need to.
I draw because I can’t not.
Sometimes it’s an overwhelming inspiration that I just have to capture. (These times are very few and far between).
Sometimes it’s simply the impulsive desire to see what comes out of the pencil when I move it across the page. This is the most common reason. I just start making marks and see what comes of it. Hence “Jason’s Doodles”. I doodle until something makes me smile, or think, or want to explore more.
And sometimes it’s just because I just want to make somebody smile. Usually this is when someone asked me to draw them something and I can’t wait to see their reaction when I finish. This is my favorite reason. Yea, I know, as an artist I’m supposed to be mysterious and brooding and say I don’t care what others think—art is supposed to be from the heart and unconcerned with what others think. But I think that’s hogwash. If we (artists) didn’t care what others think, we wouldn’t be so quick to compare ourselves to others and get our feelings hurt when someone says something discouraging about our work.
So when I get a like, or a nice comment, or a laugh, or a special request to draw something special for someone—someone trusting me to create a meaningful gift for someone they love—it makes me feel like my little insignificant scribbles have a deeper purpose than I ever thought they could.
With that - I’d like to just share a few recent works I haven’t shared anywhere else. I probably told myself I was drawing them for a better reason. Maybe it was practice, maybe it was to “say” something. But really, I think it was just because I couldn't not.
I hope you enjoy.