Benefits of a Micro-Drawing Practice

25 May, 2026

note: this post was originally written for buttondown, on september 11 2025

Drawing: we love it. It’s relaxing, it’s fun, and you have cool things to show your friends, coworkers, and first dates. But a lot of people find a regular drawing practice to be hard to maintain. This was me. 100% me. Until I got a newsletter that convinced me to give Micro-Drawing a try, my drawing practice had dried up. I was so busy between school, freelance, being a full-time worker, and y’know. Eating.

But 1-minute drawings? Easy! I could at least try! What I thought was just going to be silly and fun ended up being one of the greatest tools for my creative, mental health, and life journeys. Not to mention, it’s been great practice for making creative rituals, something I struggle with just in general.

Until now, I’d been keeping most of my Micro-Drawings secret. They’re like journals for me. And I’m definitely not showing you everything!! But I picked out some of my favorites cuz I wanted to share with y’all why it’s had such a healthy impact on me.

Without further ado: some Micro-Drawings!

I started journaling a few weeks before starting my current journal (which I am about to finish! wow!) This was the first Micro-Drawing I did, done slightly before (or after? idk) leaving to Canada for Dashcon 2, where I presented about trans/neurodiverse issues in cancer.

An example of Micro-Drawing being a good way to improve: this was a good way to practice sketching veggies without a reference or pencil sketch. I oddly like this one.

Sometimes I don’t have energy to do a larger drawing. Actually, I originally started with a 1-min limit, but figured that was too restrictive, so it’s about a 5-min limit now. Anyways, at this time I started a collab with an author with epistolary story telling. Highly recommend, it’s a ton of fun and egging on each other was a great experience!

I particularly loved this one. It was done after World HTML Day, and I’d gone to the Boston event. I had the idea of writing some pseudo-HTML and integrating it into the drawing. Sometimes playing with the format breeds creativity.

The following drawings show a fair bit of the more mental health side of Micro Drawings. Sometimes you just have a really shit day and don’t want to write or talk about it, but tracking your mental health (especially when you realize triggers or symptoms have patterns.)

Drawn after my first time doing IFS therapy. I wanted to draw it so I didn’t forget what I learned about myself. (Also discussed with the same therapist who told me about hypoarousal!)

Sometimes it’s uh. It’s like that, yeah. RIP those few sharpies, I salute you for your service.

One week I tried to taper off one of my medications to hopefully help with some of my brain fog, and I had an unexpected amount of withdrawal symptoms. It sucked!! But I was bedridden and got to make some more colorful drawings (with the highlighters I had at my bed. I was too feverish to get up.)

Micro-Drawing can be good for mental health, for journaling travels or adventures, but sometimes its best use is to document the small moments. I like to think any drawing practice is good practice. Each doodle might teach you something new. And honestly, it keeps your creative juices flowing consistently, and that’s sometimes all you need.

Occasionally I make something I enjoy so much that it becomes wall art! Woohoo!

I watched this movie called Analog Love. I got it from the library, lost it, and then had to pay the replacement fee… then I found it. It’s truly one of the greatest indie movies I’ve seen. So it’s on my rec list now (along with checking out random movies from your library; seriously, underrated micro adventure.)

Micro-Drawing has a plethora of benefits: maintaining creativity; having an easy ritual to stick to; mental health; keeping a log of important memories to quickly look back on; appreciating the little things in life; and just practicing drawing. That’s by no means an exhaustive list; there are plenty of benefits you can find in Micro-Drawing, and I encourage it even if you do it daily. Even if you’re not “an artist” — it’s your intention that counts. Taking 1 min to focus on a drawing can make a huge difference in a world of chaos.

Feel like it’s fitting to end with Murphy. I forgot what happened that day, thanks dissociative disorder, so I just drew Murphy. He’s great, isn’t he?

Did I get him right? You can judge below.

Until next time, fellow creatives! If you do any Micro-Drawings you’d like to share, I’d love to see!

Interested in following me? Follow along!

#drawing #journaling #mental health