sign up/login
The Big Draw
  • Festival Festival
    • About The Big Draw Festival
    • All Events
    • Big Draw Festival Awards
    • Sponsor-Partners 2023
    • The Big Draw Festival 2023: Drawing with Senses
    • What the Organisers Say
  • Blog Blog
    • Support Support
      • Shop Shop
        • Gallery Gallery
          • Our Work Our Work
            • About Us
            • Concepts & The Big Draw
            • Concepts Drawing Challenge
            • Contact
            • Drawing in Schools
            • FAQ's
            • Opportunities
            • Press
            • The Big Draw Ambassadors
            • The Big Draw Patrons
            • The Ruskin Prize


          Membership area

          Drawing Changes Lives

          The Big Draw
          • Festival Festival
            • About The Big Draw Festival
            • All Events
            • Big Draw Festival Awards
            • Sponsor-Partners 2023
            • The Big Draw Festival 2023: Drawing with Senses
            • What the Organisers Say
          • Blog Blog
            • Support Support
              • Shop Shop
                • Gallery Gallery
                  • Our Work Our Work
                    • About Us
                    • Concepts & The Big Draw
                    • Concepts Drawing Challenge
                    • Contact
                    • Drawing in Schools
                    • FAQ's
                    • Opportunities
                    • Press
                    • The Big Draw Ambassadors
                    • The Big Draw Patrons
                    • The Ruskin Prize

                  Membership area

                  The World's Biggest Drawing Festival


                  #ThingsThatSparkJoy: The series by Gary Andrews

                   

                  This year for The Big Draw Festival 2019 #DrawnToLife: Creativity & Wellbeing, we have been incredibly lucky to gain some truly fantastic Ambassadors championing creativity and advocating for mental health. Gary Andrews is one of these fine specimens; having spent his life as an animator, with drawing playing an important role in both his work and home life, he found that his 'Doodle-a-day diary' became a crucial outlet for his grief after the sudden death of his wife, Joy, in October 2017. He now continues to illustrate his day-to-day happenings, from the mundane to the extraordinary, and has gained an incredible following of people from all over the world, many of whom are also dealing with the death of a loved one. His work has had an incredible effect on so many people, in most cases helping others learn and understand how to cope with their own feelings of grief.

                  "I receive countless messages from all over the world from people who have found that the doodles speak to them on a personal level. I think it is because grief is so universal."

                  Gary Andrews in an interview with The Big Draw.

                  The overwhelmingly positive response that Gary has had from his Doodle-a-day diary, he says, has in turn helped him to navigate his way through his own grief. He says that "seeing how it is having a positive effect on others could not fail to have a positive effect on me too. Knowing this makes Joy’s death less pointless too, which eases the pain."

                  Gary recently received a couple of our new and exclusive Pink Pig sketchbooks branded with the official #DrawnToLife Festival logo. After asking his online following for a little inspiration as to what to do with these beautiful new sketchbooks, he got cracking on an incredible new series entitled 'Things That Spark Joy', celebrating all of life's blessings both big and small, and putting them down on paper for all to enjoy.

                  Here at The Big Draw, we absolutely loved following this series - and we weren't alone! #ThingsThatSparkJoy has had a wealth of wonderful responses online, reaching people far and wide and touching us all with it's relateable, moving, often humorous depictions of life's true pleasures.

                   

                  "I was looking for more subjects to draw as a series, following on from the success of the Hot Santa cartoons in December and the Mythological Creatures in November. I was sitting at home thinking just how lucky I am to live a creative life when it struck me that ’Things That Spark Joy’ just made so much sense."

                  "Despite losing my lovely wife, I have so much to be grateful for that I felt getting some of this down on paper would be a good exercise for me: to take a look at my life, to count my blessings."

                  "It is a very personal series but once again it seems to have touched a chord, with followers agreeing with some, or coming up with their own additional ones."

                  "The series has made people look at their own lives and what makes them happy, which has to be a good thing. Often what we see online is so negative - it’s easy to criticise something - so I rather enjoy finding the positive in the world."

                  If you have are interested in Gary and his series #ThingsThatSparkJoy, or would like to find out more about his work, you can follow him on Instagram or Twitter for daily Doodle-a-day updates, and more! You can also read our interview with Gary here.

                  Have you been inspired by The Big Draw Festival 2019 theme: #DrawntoLife? Why not join our global Festival in 2019? Registration is now open! Find out more about the benefits of becoming an organiser here and other ways to support The Big Draw's mission here.
                   
                  facebook twitter instagram pinterest YouTube
                  Find an event

                  search Advanced search »

                  Receive Big Draw News

                  Subscribe to our mailing list

                  Add me to the list
                  Ilford High Street Challenge #highstreetsforall
                  Ilford High Street Challenge #highstreetsforall
                  Ilford Business Improvement District
                  A Kearsney discovery: drawings for an animated film
                  A Kearsney discovery: drawings for an animated film
                  Dover Arts Development
                  Child colouring in a picture
                  Child colouring in a picture
                  St Albans Museums
                  Children having fun drawing friends through perspex screens
                  Children having fun drawing friends through perspex screens
                  Made in the Cotswolds
                  Heart-to-Heart Charity Walk
                  Heart-to-Heart Charity Walk
                  Picasso Creative Arts Gallery
                  Drawing an Arctic Sea
                  Drawing an Arctic Sea
                  Animate Arts Company
                  Bookseller Crow event
                  Bookseller Crow event
                  Leaping Hare Press
                  Building our webs
                  Building our webs
                  WalktheLoopArts
                  Haring figures
                  Haring figures
                  North London Collegiate School Dubai
                  Flower Power! Plant a seed and nuture it
                  Flower Power! Plant a seed and nuture it's growth at Rich Mix
                  Rich Mix
                  Alexa Lowe, Drawing Disco!
                  Alexa Lowe, Drawing Disco!
                  Southwark Park Galleries
                  Year 1 artwork by Minnie
                  Year 1 artwork by Minnie
                  St Leonards CE Primary School
                  Children with their beautiful blue morpho butterflies
                  Children with their beautiful blue morpho butterflies
                  WWF-UK Living Planet Centre
                  A felting masterpiece from one of our family activities
                  A felting masterpiece from one of our family activities
                  Huguenot Museum
                  Big Draw 2019
                  Big Draw 2019
                  Midlands Arts Centre
                  Wellbeing Paint Jam
                  Wellbeing Paint Jam
                  Dover smART Project
                  Making 16mm strip hand drawn animations.
                  Making 16mm strip hand drawn animations.
                  University of Lincoln
                  Mark-making to music
                  Mark-making to music
                  Animate Arts Company
                  Creating Thingamajigs
                  Creating Thingamajigs
                  Yorkshire Penguin Posse
                  Corn drawigs with Mars kids
                  Corn drawigs with Mars kids
                  Hisa! drustvo za ljudi in prostore (House! society for people and places)
                  Gallery View The
                  Big Draw

                  @ The Big Draw

                  Tweets by @The_Big_Draw
                  • About us
                  • Terms and Conditions
                  • Organise an event
                  • Press
                  • Privacy policy
                  • Contact
                  The Guild of St George Urban Space Management East London Chamber Alan Davidson Foundation Foster and Partners Trinity Bouy Wharf Trust Trinity Bouy Wharf Here for Culture Concepts Derwent Lottery funded