Notes from a Recovering Over-Achiever: The Beach and Crayons

By Marynia Gottfred

I love the beach. 

I am terrible at relaxing.

Both things can be true.

I have always been what they call “Type A” and vacation to me has, like everything else, always been something to conquer. 

It was a very intentional choice after months of wedding planning and decision fatigue to visit an All-Inclusive resort for our honeymoon in 2024. Choosing to honeymoon where there would be no agenda, no schedule, no structure… sounded like just the escape we needed. 

However, I forgot to take into account one tiny thing: my personality. 

Mere seconds after sitting down on a swing to see the ocean, I looked to my groom and, feeling satisfied with the mental triumph of completing an activity (see the ocean ✅), said enthusiastically, “Okay! What’s next?!” 

“We just sit here.”

Baffling, right?

Rest isn’t something that comes naturally to me. 

But that week at the beach in Mexico, forced to just be, I realized the importance of it, whether it is natural to me or not. (Granted, I did sign up for every activity the resort staff offered from sun up to sun down, whether it was tennis lessons, making guacamole on the beach, or Bingo at the pool. Is it really criminal for a girl to love structure???)

This is a real life text I sent my husband on our next vacation.

I was, undoubtedly, already on the beach at 6:34am waiting for my snoozing family to join me, already planning a big list of things for us to do together.

  

Hey, you can’t blame me too much. This was us staying in a condominium in the Gulf. There’s no resort staff to provide a daily schedule of activities. And I said this post was notes from a recovering over-achiever, not a fully recovered one. 

So, every morning, I would drag my beach chair across the sand to watch the sunrise and read my book. For the first couple hours, it’d just be me and the sandpipers and the herons watching the waves roll in. Eventually, beach towels and umbrellas would populate the sand as folks sleepily set up camp for the day, and I’d be out there til the sun set again.

I wanted to make it as easy and low-stakes as possible for myself to create on the trip, so in my beach bag, I stuffed a bag of crayons and a beat up moleskine notebook into my beach bag. I didn’t want to have Serious Art Supplies, because what if I lose them or what if I feel too intimidated or what if the sand gets on it or what if the water ruins my nice paper? I wanted to give myself the option to create without the pressure or anxiety that can come with it. Think less, do more.

And you know what? It worked. As the beach filled up with unsuspecting muses after sunrise, I found myself inspired to reach for my art supplies. Maybe it was because life drawing wasn’t just like drawing various strangers looking at their phones like you encounter in most public places these days. Maybe it was because there’s something special about the beach. Either way, I probably did way more life drawing on that trip than I had since art school. 

Everything about that golden week on the beach just seemed to recharge me. In addition to all the life drawing I did, I finished a tall stack of books. I played Candyland and built sandcastles with my nephews. I made dinner and laughed late into the night with my in-laws. I watched the sunrise and set every morning and evening. I was reminded to slow down and make art because I like making art.

(And if you're wondering, I also did everything on the aforementioned text message to-do list.)

Here are some highlight sketches from that trip:

Idk this family but the mom had the cutest swimsuit and her little girl was just so fun to draw (even though she was a wiggly little thing)

Same mom and baby. But life drawing in somewhat close proximity you have to be kinda stealthy because you don't want to seem creepy, y'know? Like I'm not trying to creep on you and your kiddo, just drawin' 

Life drawing at the beach is especially delightful because there's a good mix of active action poses and still/relaxed poses and a good level of interaction between people. Also people are wearing such little clothing, it's so easy to get the shapes of their body

Fellow beachgoing strangers setting up their beach chairs 

More strangers enjoying the beach

Left are roughs of my nephew and right is my brother in law

So even though these drawings are now a little over a year old, I’m reminded that art doesn’t have to be So Serious. It can just be crayons in a beach bag and slowing down enough to use them. It doesn’t have to be over the top, perfectly polished, or even anything with mass appeal. You have permission to scribble and make drawings that you maybe don’t want to show people. And then maybe in a year, you’ll look back and feel like sharing them. So it’s important to show up and make them. 

At risk of this post getting way too long, there’s one sketch of my youngest nephew that I have been thinking about for a year and just recently started to paint in gouache. It’s about a third of the way done now, and I’d like to finish it before sharing. I have never touched gouache, and my major struggles and minor triumphs with that new medium honestly warrant their own post. I’m including the sketch here, but keep an eye out for a part 2 down the line.

These are the crayon drawings of my nephew I did. I'd  like to make the left into a more finished piece. More on that later.

Thanks for reading!!