Channeling my inner Leonardo di Vinci

A few nights ago, I was so bored, I felt compelled to do something I’ve never done before: I posted on my snapchat story that I was willing to draw anyone​ as long as they sent in a picture for me to reference.

I am not a good artist by any means. I made this clear by posting a photo of a portrait I drew of my good friend, Gio Palermo. The drawing looked about 50% Palermo, 50% scribbles of generic facial features.

However, this proved to be all the momentum I needed: the requests came rolling in.

One after the other, I drew my classmates, often completing the drawing within ​minutes ​of starting it. I would tag them on my story with a picture of the drawing and a short caption. Within an hour, I had completed around ten requests, and received many more.

There were more than enough drawings to keep me busy that night. The next day, I received even more. I found myself getting somewhat overwhelmed.

Despite the coronavirus blues, I have had to force myself to complete these because I know that I have a job to do. These drawings are in high demand, and I gave my word. While some have been surprisingly good, others have turned out rather bad. At times I felt rushed, or didn’t realize that my art “skills” wouldn’t allow me to mindlessly churn out a dozen drawings.

Regardless, in partaking in this weird and time consuming experiment, I’ve realized the potential social media can have to unite us. Being stuck at home all day can be boring, but social media can allow us to reach out to others who are just as bored as the rest of us. I didn’t originally have any intention to go on Snapchat and ask people to let me draw them, but the idea came to me. It turns out it was a good idea, and I had a lot of fun on my artistic adventure.

In fact, I found out that small, low quality drawings can shine some light on someone’s day, and marginally improve my own drawing skills.

At least, I think they can.