This morning, I was asked “…how long have you been drawing and using Ai?”

To which I replied:

I’d say I’ve been drawing since, oh, somewhere in the mid-70s when I was coordinated enough to hold a crayon. The oldest sketchbook I have around is from about 1982, though I know I was carrying one around and using it regularly several years before that. I wasn’t drawing at a pro level until after I went to animation school in 1995. Started using Illustrator in 2000.

tl;dr: I’m an old lady who’s been drawing since before ‘home computers’ existed.

I refrained from mentioning that there was a not insignificant chance that I have a pencil case older than the person asking this question. Which I still occasionally use. (This was on Reddit, whose median age seems to be in the mid-twenties. That pencil case is about nineteen years old now. It’s not likely but it will be in a few more years.)

How did I get here what happened what a long strange life it’s been, geeze.