Defend your vice.

i'd rather be home, originally uploaded by deepwarren.

I started scribbling cause i was bored at lunchtime. Previous to 1st year high school, i'd been home schooled, and then sent to a state school about 50m from home. I spent a lot of year 7 not at school. So enforced attendance in a small christian school of about 40 high schoolers (year8-yr10) was pretty dull. Specially that hour at lunch, where if you didn't have anyone in particular to hang out with, then you were screwed.

I took up computing. Which was fun. Unfortunately it was at the boys end of the school, and for one reason or another (boys and girls didn't mix - which meant I had about 7 people to talk to) it was discovered that I had been mixing with boys. Which was not allowed. I do remember being very annoyed at this. It seemed unfair, especially since there wasn't that much interest from the boys (not in the computers, and certainly not in me).

So I started drawing. I found some draw cartoons book, and I was bad. But the art teacher made some encouraging noises, and I found out that scribbling was a vice that whittled away the hours, got you lost in your own little world, and created a nice feedback loop between me and the outer world.

It also tends to show my preoccupations. I quite liked drawing dicks for a while (little harmless ones rather than throbbing raging erections). Boxes, and all there mysteries was another.

I think I vowed that I would stop drawing at 30 if I had achieved nothing. As I've gotten older, I've drawn less. Stopping has proven more difficult than I thought. I'd like to think that when I retire I'll be curled on the couch with the dog, watching the Bill (still!) with a sketchbook on my lap.


Why would you quit?