Michael Nobbs

Tag: mental-health

  • Familiar Spouts, a Mr Kipling Apple Pie and My New Mug

    An open sketchbook rests on a tray covered with a printed cloth of small illustrated chickens. The drawing on the page is made entirely in pencil: a jug with a pronounced spout, a teapot, an insulated mug with a lidded top, and several loosely sketched chickens. The jug appears slightly larger in scale than the other objects. The drawing is left in line only, with no colour or text added it is dated 7-11-25 in the bottom right corner. Above the sketchbook, the real objects sit on the tray: the jug, the teapot, the insulated mug, and a small pie in its wrapper. The scene is arranged on a softly crocheted blanket made up of blue and purple squares with a white borders. A small white reading lamp lights the scene with a gentle orange glow, and the overall feeling is quiet and domestic.

    Today I turned my new tea-tray mat over, revealing a calm brown background. I also added a Mr Kipling apple pie to my tray — something with warm associations from long ago. Together these two small changes helped me into a calmer space before I started drawing than I was in yesterday.

    I began the drawing with the spout of my milk jug. I get pleasure and comfort from drawing its shape — the same is true of my teapot spout. After drawing both, I moved on to my new insulated mug, starting with the little sticking-out piece of its lid. I can see that this might become a familiar starting point — it isn’t yet, but the possibility that it might pleases me.

    I made the decision to include the chickens on the tray mat — more unfamiliarity — but then I spotted a chicken that was familiar. It is the same as the one on my lesser-used (but still often drawn) Go Gently George mug. Seeing that one helped the other illustrated chickens feel friendlier. I was getting to know them better as I drew. Quite suddenly, I realised I was enjoying myself, and noticed that the new mug is more on the page and part of the drawing than it was yesterday.

    No colour today, no text. I rather like the open space left on the page.

    A calmer time drawing — and, with the new insulated mug, my tea was still hot when I finished.

    A close view of an open sketchbook page showing a pencil drawing of an arrangement of tea things on a tray. A jug, teapot, insulated mug, and a number of chickens are drawn with strong lines. The photograph is a closely cropped view of the sketchbook, but the top of the image shows the tray from the drawing and includes a small reading light casting an orange glow and a stub of a yellow pencil with a gold ferrule. It can be seen that the chickens from the drawing are illustrations on a brown mat that is covering the tray. The image suggests a feeling of intimacy, cosiness, and domesticity.

    Posted in:

    ,

  • Drawing Through a Transition and a New Understanding

    An open sketchbook lies on a bed beside a tray. On the tray are a white ridged jug, a small green teapot, and a bright orange insulated mug on a chicken-patterned mat. The drawing in the sketchbook depicts these same objects and their arrangement. Coloured pencils and a small reading light are nearby. The scene is softly lit with warm, indirect light.

    Two new things in my world

    When something changes in my small daily world, it can feel larger than it might seem to someone else. I often need time to learn how to be alongside the new thing — to find its place and let it find mine. Drawing can help with this — not always straight away or with one drawing, but over time, drawing by drawing, I can begin to feel comfortable with the new and unfamiliar.

    Today’s drawing, The Shock of the New shows the start of a transition. I have a new bright orange mug and a new turquoise tray mat covered with small white chickens. I really love them both, but on my tray, in this drawing, they both felt out of place — loud, jarring and too new.

    Drawing through the discomfort of transition

    In the drawing, the new mug appears only partly on the page, as though it hasn’t quite entered the familiar world of the drawing yet. The chickens on the tray are clumsy — my hand doesn’t know their shapes, so it feels its way slowly, uncertainly. Nothing is fully settled. I am still working out how these new things belong.

    As I stayed with the drawing, I noticed that something began to shift a little. The new objects didn’t feel comfortable, exactly — but they felt less abrupt. I wasn’t trying to make them fit, but I was enjoying exploring them and and feeling the possibility that they might.

    What I’m beginning to understand

    I’m beginning to see that drawing helps me move slowly through a change, to sit with the discomfort of it, and to let something unfamiliar become part of my world. In that sense, it is a therapeutic process.

    More than that, I’ve realised today (with a quiet shock of recognition) that my recent drawings have also been revealing a little more about me than I had quite seen before. I think that understanding is part of another transition and I need to let it arrive slowly too — drawing by drawing.

    A close view of an open sketchbook page showing a line drawing of objects on a tea-tray: a ridged jug, a small teapot, and the upper portion of a tall insulated mug. The tray mat beneath them is turquoise and patterned with small repeated white chickens. Areas of flat colour appear in turquoise, black, and orange. At the top of the page, handwritten text reads: “The shock of the new. Trying to draw my new mug and tray mat among the more familar (sic). I'm not very good with change.” The image is lit by a soft orange light, which may be somewhat altering the appearance of the colours.
    The Shock of the New (6th October 2025)

    Posted in:

    ,

  • Trying to Draw My Teapot to Calm Myself

    An open sketchbook lies on a patterned blanket beside a tea-tray with a familiar lime green _Teapot For Life_ teapot, a comforting white _Louise Go Gently_ mug, and pencils. The pages show large handwritten text in turquoise-blue reading “Trying to draw my teapot to calm myself down (I’m going to the dentist today!), but don’t seem to be able to draw today.” On the right page is a loose drawing of the same teapot in Light Olive and Grey, set against a background of Silver Grey Neocolor and dark scribbled marks. The whole scene conveys a mix of anxiety and tenderness — an attempt to find calm through drawing.

    I’d been okay last night, but this morning I woke up feeling very anxious about today’s dental appointment. Early-morning anxiety used to be a regular occurrence when I was first diagnosed with ME, and a more generalised social anxiety has followed me through my life — though I wasn’t always aware of it. I’ve always struggled with going to the dentist.

    I’d hoped that my current morning routine of making tea followed by making a drawing would help to calm me today, as it did to some extent yesterday. I decided to keep it simple and just draw my teapot — something I’ve done hundreds of times. But today nothing felt right. I tried to draw slowly, beginning with the teapot’s spout, then gradually adding the top of the pot, its handle and hinge.

    I’m not someone who worries much about perspective, but I do look for something that feels satisfying — something that works within its own small visual world. After three attempts, filling the page in ways I wouldn’t normally do, I found I was adding drawing anxiety to my dental anxiety. I drew one more version of the teapot and decided that it would have to do, no matter how it turned out.

    I added some colour to distinguish it from the earlier attempts, then layered a heavy scribble of Silver Grey Neocolor II over the top to partly obscure them. At that point I began to enjoy myself, and the drawing anxiety (if not the dental) began to recede. There’s something satisfying about those semi-hidden lines under the grey — a quiet record of my anxious searching for calm.

    Home now from my appointment and resting on the bed with a second pot of tea, the dental anxiety has passed. Perhaps it was an anxiety that no amount of drawing could dampen. But drawing could record it — and distract me for a while — and maybe that’s enough.

    The full text reads:

    Trying to draw my teapot to calm myself down (I’m going to the dentist today!), but I don’t seem to be able to draw today!

    A close view of the sketchbook page focusing on the teapot drawing. The familiar _Teapot For Life_ teapot is rendered in Light Olive and Grey, with black and red marks around the rim, set against a softly worked Silver Grey background. The turquoise handwriting in Chrysocolla Blue pencil is visible on the opposite page. Pencil and crayon lines show three earlier attempts to find the form. The image feels both unsettled and intimate — the drawing and words merging into a small act of self-soothing.

    Posted in:

    ,