Why I Started Creating Art

To understand the beginning, you need to see what tried to end it.

I can’t even count the number of times I dodged art — and yet, it was the one thing that gave me peace whenever I returned to it.

Like many kids growing up in an Indian household, I was told that the “real” careers were engineering or medicine. But I turned out to be a rebel. Not the kind who skipped school or back-talked my parents (honestly, I never even got the chance to do that). My rebellion was quieter. I kept leaning toward something that didn’t fit the box everyone else thought I belonged in.
Some of my far relatives believe I got the “gene of art” passed on by my grandparents or maybe even their parents — I’m not sure how much of that is true because I didn’t learn it from anyone at home. I remember my drawings being torn during my 10th standard because I didn’t score 60+ in my pre-boards. I still don’t know how my drawings were even related to my academics, but yeah, that was the step toward my first major art block.

You might be wondering — I promised to tell you how I started creating art, so why am I talking about the blocks instead? That’s because the story is deeply intertwined. To understand the beginning, you need to see what tried to end it.

This first art block ended years later, after I completed my medical undergraduate studies in Ukraine. After almost nine years, I realized I had been pushing back a major part of myself — the wish to be expressive and to create.

I was happy in many ways, because there was so much I was learning and experiencing. Life felt full. But at the same time, I had no outlet for all those experiences — no way to release or express them, if you know what I mean.

One day, I picked up my first canvas from a nearby store close to my apartment in Ukraine and bought some basic painting colors. I looked up a few “how-to” videos on Instagram and YouTube. The first painting I created — at that time I thought it was so beautiful. Looking back now, I think it was trash. But even then, I still appreciate it, the same way I appreciate every new painting I create now. I thought that now, having completed graduation as my family wished, I could finally do something I wanted to do — and life couldn’t be any better.

That was the start of something. But life doesn’t just let you be. I witnessed the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war and the terror it created in the lives of everyone there. That’s a whole other story I’ll share in another blog. But that war forced me to leave behind my home, many valuables, and the six canvases I had created in just a couple of months after my first art block.

I thought I would never recover from that emotional loss — of losing a home and a life I had already poured my dreams into. Even after returning to India three weeks later, after watching the war and the havoc so closely, I kept grieving. I wasn’t a citizen of Ukraine, but I still felt that patriotism isn’t just for the country you are born in — it can grow in your heart for the country where you live for years.

After returning to India, I was grieving and completely at a loss of mental peace. That’s when art returned to me like a savior, transforming me from a grieving soldier into an expressive warrior.
I got started with more energy and more stories to paint, one by one. Within a few months, I was already feeling content and at peace, having finished more than 45+ canvases. My days passed in a rhythm of doing my 8-hour job and then spending another 8 hours painting — and that balance kept me full.

Back when I thought this was just going to bea decent hobby. I didn’t know these canvases would one day hold my survival story.

After about a year, I decided to go independent once again and make myself a new home away from my family home, so I could have more independence, more space to create, and more freedom to learn from life.

I learned that life is never easy, never just happy-go-lucky days. What matters is what you choose to notice — and what you choose to pour into your cup. If you keep pouring sadness, then sadness is what you’ll drink. But if you pour colors, then colors are what you’ll have. And I don’t mind drinking colors — quite literally, I’ve done it a few times by mistake when I picked up the paint-water glass instead of my coffee mug (haha).

I haven’t stopped painting since. So now, let me tell you — art block is a myth. What really happens is that we prioritize other things over art, and that’s simply the choice we make in that moment. But art and expression can never truly be blocked. Just like you can never block what you feel — it will always be there until your last breath. If you feel, and if you express, then you can create.

And this is why I say it’s not just about me — it’s really about you.

Because if you’ve ever felt blocked, lost, or too busy for the things you love, I want you to know this: art doesn’t leave you. Expression doesn’t leave you. It waits. And the moment you choose to give yourself permission, it returns — just like it did for me.

Your canvas may not be paint. It might be words, music, cooking, dance, building, or even the way you care for others. Whatever your medium is, it matters. Because if you feel, and if you express, then you are already creating.

So maybe the question isn’t why I started creating art — maybe it’s why you should never stop.

Months later, grief turned into colors. Over 45 canvases in — each one a page from my healing.