Latest / The Creative Life: Art, Writing, Music & Creative Living / Drawing Comics About Houseplants When No One Is Watching | The Creative Life
Transcript
- You know that moment when you’re staring at a fern and suddenly realize it’s been judging your life choices for three years? I’m not talking about guilt. I’m talking about the quiet, leafy silence of being truly seen by something that doesn’t care if you’re productive. I want to talk about the art we make in the dark. Not the kind of darkness that feels heavy or lonely, but the soft, dim light of a Tuesday evening when the house is finally quiet. The kind of creative practice that leaves no trace on social media. No hashtags. No polished final images uploaded for approval. Just you, a sketchbook, and a spider plant that has outgrown its pot by an inch. For a long time, I thought creativity had to be loud to be valid. If it didn’t result in a finished piece, a sold item, or a public exhibition, did it even count? I spent years chasing the 'product,' as I’ve said before, trying to force my hand into shapes that looked good on a screen. But then I moved into this cabin, further from the grid, further from the gaze of the world, and I started drawing comics about my houseplants. Not serious comics. Not graphic novels ready for submission. Just little four-panel strips drawn in charcoal on cheap notebook paper. Scenes of a pothos vine slowly claiming the bookshelf. A cactus sitting in judgment while I burned toast. A succulent looking suspiciously like it’s plotting revenge. What’s the texture of that experience? It’s rough. It’s messy. The charcoal smudges on my fingers become part of the story. The lines are shaky because my eyes are tired. There is no one to show this to. There is no audience waiting in the wings. And that absence of an audience is where the magic hides. It’s okay to be unfinished here. In fact, it’s necessary. Let’s look closer at what happens when you draw something living without the pressure to make it beautiful. You start noticing things you’d normally scroll past. You notice how the monstera leaves unfurl like green fists opening after a long sleep. You notice the way the light hits the dust motes dancing around the fiddle-leaf fig at exactly 4:17 PM. These details don’t make it into the highlight reel of anyone’s life, but they make up the entire texture of your actual existence. When I draw these plants, I’m not trying to capture their botanical accuracy. I’m trying to capture their mood. Do they feel content? Do they feel neglected? Do they feel like they’re holding their breath? I remember drawing a comic once where a small rubber plant was depicted as a stoic monk, sitting perfectly still while chaos erupted around it—a spilled cup of coffee, a ringing phone, a dog barking at the mailman. The plant just sat there. Green. Calm. Unbothered. It felt like a portrait of myself that I needed to see. Because lately, I’ve been feeling frantic. The noise of the world outside these walls has a way of seeping in through the cracks in the floorboards. We are told constantly to perform, to share, to optimize. To turn every hour into content. But the houseplant does none of that. It grows. It drops a leaf occasionally. It reaches for the sun. It does not ask for permission. By drawing it, I am borrowing its stillness. I am letting its rhythm slow down my own heartbeat. It’s a silent collaboration between two creatures who just want to exist without explanation. There’s a phase in any creative act that we usually skip over. It’s the middle part. The part where the idea hasn’t formed yet, and the final product is nowhere in sight. It’s muddy. It’s confusing. With the plants, this middle part is just… watching. Sitting on the floor. Squinting. Trying to understand why that one leaf is turning brown at the tip. Is it water? Is it light? Is it sadness? In traditional art classes, they teach you to observe with precision. Measure the angles. Capture the perspective. But when you’re drawing comics about domestic life, precision isn’t the goal. Connection is. The brown leaf becomes a character trait. The drooping stem becomes a sigh. You’re not documenting biology; you’re documenting emotion. And sometimes, the drawings come out ugly. Really ugly. The proportions are off. The shading looks like a storm cloud. And that’s fine. That’s the dignity of manual labor in art. The labor isn’t in making it perfect. The labor is in showing up again tomorrow and picking up the pencil. I used to burn out because I couldn’t tolerate the ugly middle. I wanted the spark to turn into lightning immediately. Now, I let the spark smolder. I let the comic strip sit in the drawer for weeks. I let the plant grow wild while I figure out what it’s trying to say. This patience feels radical now. It feels like rebellion. Because in a world that demands instant gratification, choosing to spend hours watching a vine curl is a quiet act of defiance. It says: I am here. I am present. I am not rushing. We often confuse solitude with loneliness. They are different rooms in the same house. Loneliness is empty. Solitude is full. When I sit with my sketchbook and my plants, I am not alone. I am accompanied. The air is thick with the presence of other lives breathing alongside mine. There is a comfort in that. A grounding sense that I am part of a larger ecosystem, even if that ecosystem is confined to a rented room with peeling paint. This practice has taught me how to be with myself without needing to entertain myself. Usually, when I’m alone, I reach for my phone. I fill the silence with podcasts, with news, with voices that aren’t mine. But with the plants, the silence has a shape. It has a weight. It invites me to listen to the sound of my own breath. To watch the shadow of a leaf move across the wall as the sun sets. These are tiny moments. They take seconds. But they accumulate. They build a foundation of peace that nothing external can shake. It reminds me of that episode we talked about recently, where we discussed the terror of hitting send on a journal submission. The anxiety comes from wanting control over how we are perceived. From fearing rejection. But here, with the comics, there is no rejection. There is only observation. The plant doesn’t judge my drawing skills. It doesn’t critique my composition. It just exists. And in its indifference, I find freedom. I am free to be bad at drawing. I am free to be awkward. I am free to just be. The work is not a performance. It is a conversation. Over time, these notebooks fill up. They become archives of small things. Pages stained with tea rings. Margins filled with doodles of roots and stems. Sketches of vines tangling around lamp cords. It’s not a portfolio. It’s not a resume. It’s a diary of attention. Looking back at them months later, I don’t see art. I see time. I see days where I chose to stay still. Days where I noticed the way the light changed. Days where I felt connected to something larger than my own worries. These drawings are evidence that I was alive. That I was paying attention. In a culture that measures value by output, by likes, by sales, this archive is counter-cultural. It proves that attention itself is a form of creation. That witnessing is an act of love. When I draw a fern, I am loving it. Not in a romantic way, but in a respectful way. I am honoring its presence. I am acknowledging that it has been here longer than I have, and it will likely be here longer than I will. This perspective shifts everything. It lowers the stakes. It makes the pressure to produce disappear. Because you realize that the point isn’t the drawing. The point is the seeing. The point is the relationship. And relationships don’t need to be posted to be real. They don’t need to be validated to be true. They just need to be lived. So keep your secrets. Keep your sketches hidden in drawers. Let them gather dust. Let them remain unfinished. There is a profound beauty in creating for the sake of creating, with no one watching but the walls and the windows and the quiet, green friends who hold the space for you. So, I invite you to think about what you create when no one is watching. What is the texture of that? What stories are you telling yourself in the quiet hours? Maybe it’s not comics. Maybe it’s knitting socks that never get worn. Maybe it’s writing letters that you’ll never send. Maybe it’s cooking meals for one. Whatever it is, protect it. Nurture it. Don’t let the world convince you that it needs an audience to matter. Your creativity is not a tool for validation. It is a way of being. It is how you touch the world. How you leave your mark, not on the internet, but on your own soul. Let your hands get dirty. Let your ideas be messy. Let your work be ugly. Especially let it be ugly. Because in the ugliness, there is truth. In the mess, there is life. And in the silence, there is you. Truly, fully, unapologetically you. Take a deep breath. Look around your room. Find one thing that is just living. A candle flame. A crack in the plaster. A cat sleeping in a sunbeam. Draw it. Write about it. Notice it. And then put it away. Let it rest. Let it be yours alone. The world can wait. You don’t have to show them anything today. You just have to be here. With the plants. With the page. With yourself. Thank you for sitting with me today. For listening to the silence. For letting your mind wander among the leaves. Until next time, keep your pencils sharp and your heart open. Take care of yourself.