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I loved drawing and colouring when I was a kid. I could lose myself for hours in it. I remember being incredibly happy when someone gave me an old book of wallpaper samples so I could use the backs for drawing.

I loved drawing and colouring when I was a kid.

Me too. Me and my brother invented a whole world of cats, and we filled numerous drawing books with them. Our cats flew planes, drove cars and buses, built cities and so on. Each drawing had a narrative of its own behind it.

I remember being incredibly happy when someone gave me an old book of wallpaper samples so I could use the backs for drawing.

For me it was a stack of green-bar computer paper. Once my Mom got me a roll of butcher paper which was the coolest thing on earth at the time. I could roll it out and draw on it for hours and make long continous drawings. Plus it held the ink from markers without bleeding.

I used to draw all the time...the edges of my notes in class were always bordered by sketches, and sometimes portraits of fellow classmates. Somehow I've gotten away from it, much to my chagrin. My last painting was a couple of years ago. I do sketch, occasionally, but I miss it. Just seems like I don't have the time, or when I do, I don't have the inspiration.

I've never exactly had a hand for drawing. I guess I just don't have enough control over my left hand. I've always loved drawing (but also finding) patterns, though. I have a fixation with patterns. I've had this fixation for years. For instance, when I was maybe seven or eight years old, I was fascinated with pictures of highways and intersections. I must have filled several notebooks with nothing but pictures of intersections from the above. I didn't even care if they were functional or practical: I was only interested in the aesthetics of them (but also with how rational they were: from this lane, you can turn into that lane and so on).

At some point, I switched to circuit tracks where the challenge was keeping them interesting. I also loved creating new tracks in some old racing games: Stunts and GPU come to mind. Then, at some point, I started drawing city maps -- probably under the influence of Simcity games. It was fun to start with a basic pattern, add a few obstacles and then watch the pattern evolve*.

I still keep doodling patterns on the edges of the notes I take in lectures and classes.

* This is also something I like about writing: I start with a few basic "rules" and then, before I know it, the thing I'm writing is out of control.

I had no talent for drawing, I might add, I just liked to do it.

Well, you know my name is Simon...

I have the Thistle crayon sitting on my desk. It was discontinued.

I remember being incredibly happy when someone gave me an old book of wallpaper samples so I could use the backs for drawing.

This strikes me as very Dickensian for some reason. I picture a block of row houses, big black chimneys going on all of them, and the camera narrows down through a window in the back to little Eedge, so happy to have her wallpaper samples.

...little Eedge, so happy to have her wallpaper samples.

Before some villain takes them away and steals little Eedge off to a life of chimney-sweeping or street-urchin pickpocketing?

We must all attend to the future of Little Eedge.

Our Holy Grail was the 64-box with Built-In Sharpener! I still love Crayon smell.

When I quit smoking a few years ago, one strategy I needed to use was to find something for my hands to be doing basically all the time. (Yes, you may insert your joke here). One thing that worked unbelievably well was that I bought a small, spiral-bound sketchbook and a tin of 12 colored pencils. I carried them with me wherever I went, and drew all the time. I'm not a great artist by any means. I'm not even good at drawing. But there's something ssoooo therapeutic about getting involved in the process, watching lines and colors flow out under your hands. That, and I would often sketch goofy little things that I was looking at, like a view out the window, a piece of furniture in the room, or the stuff on a cafe table. Now, when I look back over the books, they almost form a memory album for those times in my life.

In fact, it turned me from being a journal person to a sketchbook person. These days I don't take the pencils everywhere, but I do use my sketchbook as my basic repository for notes, quotes, lists, ideas, and pencil sketches. It's still fun. You don't have to be good!