I have done meditative drawing before and I have meditated before and I have ‘drawn my breath’ – moving a pen on paper in time with my breath, but I have never drawn AS meditation before.

What’s the difference?

Maybe some people wouldn’t distinguish between all of those things but for me there was a qualitative difference.

Meditative drawing in mindful drawing – paying close attention to what you are doing and keeping your focus on what you are creating. It’s restful and mindful and soothing but it doesn’t feel the same as meditation to me.

Meditation takes lots of forms but for me it usually centres on focusing on the breath.

Drawing my breath is also meditative but it feels more like a warm up than a meditation. As in, it would slow me down on a hectic day so I could then sit in meditation.

Today’s experience was different again.

Yesterday, I saw an Instagram post suggesting doodling for stress relief and I decided to morph that into drawing as meditation.

I set my timer for 10 minutes and breathed slowly as I drew lines in one direction on my card and then in the other and then drew small squares where the lines intersected.

As you can see, 10 minutes is not enough time to put a square on each intersection but it was enough time to feel focused and like I was finding some inner stillness.

I’ll definitely try this again.