How I look after my mental health

as an illustrator

Hello all - I hope you're all doing ok, and you are getting a bit of sun wherever you are in the world.

I've wanted to film this for a while, and I finally got to it this month. It took some time to film and edit, so sorry it took a while to post. I'm hoping to squeeze one more video in for the end of March - a sketchbook look-through - it's been a while, but I still have some from the #100daydrawpeople project (which you may know, actually became #50daydrawpeople, but that's another story!).

So, I guess I'll start by saying that this a personal and subjective view of how I look after my mental health whilst working from home, which can mean quite a lot of time sat at a desk, with just myself for company. If you are really suffering with your mental health, you should always seek the health of a professional, and I highly recommend therapy, it's been amazing for me.

I wanted to try and make this a bit of a day-in-the-life- but I have to admit the day-in-the-life thing peters out by the end. It turns out trying to film your day whilst also adding in filming a video into it means it's not your typical day-in-the-life and therefore the whole thing gets a bit meta! But I hope it makes it a little bit more interesting to watch. I also hope that I have managed to articulate things OK. I found out it's really difficult to talk about concepts you have only ever really read about or thought about in your head! Anyway, I hope it makes sense, and I hope it might be helpful for some of you.

I think there is probably a part two to this video, where I could talk about how I manage my feelings around self-confidence and self-esteem about making artwork, and also, how I keep on top of a situation that could feel quite lonely - working alone in my studio. I am working on a bit of a plan about that at the moment, so maybe I will come back to part two in a few months.

subscribers can watch the video below…