Immersing yourself in a hobby can be a good distraction. It's no fix for your underlying problems, though.
As far as how to get started: maybe just join some communities, watch some videos, tutorials whatever.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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I don't think learning anything is ever not helpful but if your not motivated I doubt you will keep it up. I tend to be jealous of folks being able to do things.
For me it is
I have a lot of difficulty deciding what to draw when I'm depressed.
You should make a backlog of inspiration or studies you want to draw when you feel good, and then when your depressed you force yourself to draw the next one in the list.
As for what you need decide your budget first, $50 will get a good quality sketchbook and good pencils, and a set of erasers (gummy, white, firm). I don't do colour pencils but they are more expensive, goes back to budget.
Don't worry too much about the right brands or anything like that, just buy paper that has ring bindings (easier to lay flat) and feels nice to touch, with a bit of texture to help control smudging.
If you go marjers or water colours or inks, then paper matters more.
If you don't know what to draw, draw shapes and squiggles and practice your hatching and shading techniques.
Just try it.
In your current state I have a feeling it will never be an excited "this suits me perfectly", so just take this idea you have that drawing might be interesting and just do it. You'll know whether you like it soon enough.
drawing is a wonderful skill that allows you to express ideas in a way that words simply cannot
it really helped me a lot to express the sort of things i was going through when i was depressed. it helped because i could express the feelings without explaining the situation or having to put it in words
do you have friends that would be supportive of your drawings? if you don't, you could even post them online or here. but i think having a place to show your art and get feedback helps a lot (ofc, if you want to keep your art to yourself, that's perfectly okay too)
https://drawabox.com/ if you want to give it a try