This marks another addition to the regular feature here at little Indiana: Indiana Blogs! If you are an Indiana Blogger, please use the contact form and send me an email. You may be featured right here on little Indiana.
Indiana Blogs: Sketching Brad
Indiana Blog Sketching Brad is positive, humorous, and enormously uplifting, wrapped up in a big healthy dose of honesty and personal reflection.
This down-on-his luck Hoosier began his blog, Sketching Brad, as a way to find himself. We can look back on his journey, and his frequent postings, as a source of inspiration.
Follow along and meet Brad, an Indiana blogger with artistic flair–and definite talent for sketching!
Indiana Blogs: Sketching Brad
First I just want to say thank you. It is an honor for my first interview to be with Little Indiana.
Why did you start Sketching Brad? (and how long have you been blogging?)
To be honest, Sketching Brad started out of a lot of turmoil. Just before the start up of Sketching Brad, I was thinking long and hard about my life. I was in a bit of a mess.
From all this long and hard thinking I realized that it was me, not anyone else but me, that had gotten me into this mess. I knew that no one was going to save me. I knew that the outcome of my life was entirely up to me. I knew it was going to take some time to fix it. Any personal growth will. This is the “real” reason I created Sketching Brad. It’s a tool to hold myself accountable. A tool to document my growth and an outlet for some creative angst. And although it’s only been a short time (since the end of July) I have already discovered significant changes in my life.
I’m overcoming my negativity. I started setting goals and consciously started taking steps to achieve them. I went to work on my integrity and on my honor. I started building up my character and my respect for others. I went work on my courage and facing my fears. I started focusing on my physical health and have lost 40 lbs. I wanted to share my story as it unfolds and provide helpful insight on the Sketching Brad blog, for free, in the possibility that it may help others.
Flash forward down the road 5 years and I will have sketched out a whole new me.
What about that name? Why Sketching Brad?
I chose the name Sketching Brad as a play on words. Yes I am an artist and my creative outlet is to draw, but Sketching Brad means a whole lot more than that. In a way I am drawing a new me. I am most definitely creating a new me.
I have made a decision and paid the price to sketch out a new Brad Meyers. I owe everything I am and everything I am on my way to becoming to that incredibly scared, lonely, confused me of not long ago. Because he was willing to face his fears and made an intelligent decision I am growing by leaps and bounds today.
What are three of your most favorite posts?
I could literally list hundreds if I were choosing from other blogs, say Little Indiana for example, but since I have to choose from my own I’d have to say:
- For inspiration and/or personal growth (which are both a huge focus in my life): All You Need is Love
- Another bit of short to the point growth would be: Set Your Imagination First
- And another big part of my life is comedy. I honestly thrive upon it. I love to laugh and believe it is truly the best medicine. Laughter is just another form of love. This is something I wrote just being goofy one day: I Don’t Own Any Sweatpants
There are plenty of other posts on the blog that might be funnier, but that one still makes me giggle.
What keeps you ready and raring to post? Why do you blog?
As I said earlier Sketching Brad is a tool to keep me in check.
It is super easy to make all these statements of personal growth and development when nobody is around, but putting it out there for the world to see keeps me on track. And when I get someone responding to tell me that my story has inspired them it means the world to me.
You’ve got quite a story! Your tagline reads “sketching out a new me.” What can readers expect to find when they read your blog?
Thank you. It’s true, I have been through quite a bit in a very short time, but I see it as a blessing in disguise. It has given me that extra nudge to kick my butt into gear and get things on track.
Readers can expect to find many personal growth stories, how to’s, how to lives, comedy, all mixed in with a fair amount of artwork. It is my goal to inspire, gather smiles and grow together.
Have you always liked to draw? What are your favorite things to sketch?
I have, although I’ve never taken any professional courses. In fact, my original intention in life was to go to college for graphic design. Somehow, along the way, I lost sight of that.
I reckon I made myself believe that I could not survive on my artistic abilities alone and I ended up joining the military instead. This was not my true calling, though I saw it through and served 8 years. Tack on another 6 years, after the military, of dead end jobs and bad relationship after bad relationship, I decided to pick up the pencil again. I feel like I just aimlessly roamed through life over the past 14 years.
That’s why this blog is so important to me. It is my key to victory. My road that leads out of this muck I have created for myself. I am living proof that it is never too late to turn it all around.
Is there anything else that you would like little Indiana readers to know about you or your blog?
Yes. I would encourage readers to get involved. Apply these personal growth steps in their lives and follow through for the end results. So many times we say that we want to make the change or we want to take the action, only to find ourselves standing still.
I want the readers to know that I am available, free of charge, to help out with any advice or whatever guidance I can give them. Just reach out, we can grow together.
Find pictures in Indiana on my Flickr photostream or on the new little Indiana Tumblr blog.
Just don’t forget to tell ‘em that little Indiana sent you!
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