The pandemic has affected my family and my routines in many ways. Some are good, like how we have been able to have many more family meals because we are all home more often. But, others are not as beneficial, like how much less motivated I’ve been to complete simple tasks. I’ve definitely experienced negative emotions during lockdown, mostly due to missing my friends, family, and essentially how life was before. Art helps to combat these feelings by taking my mind off of the situation and focusing on something that I find more fun. Art is definitely a way I’ve coped with the lockdown, especially in the form of music. Listening to music, writing music, dancing to music, it just helps to calm me down and make me happier. Painting is another form of art that has helped me. I’ve painted shoes and water bottles for other people, and creating things that help bring happiness to others also brings happiness to me. Seeing someone else smile because of my art helps me to stop focusing as much on all of these scary world events.

Graduating college during a pandemic has been nothing short of tumultuous. I’m lucky to have a family home to return to while I navigate my short- and long-term future.

I’ve had my fair share of unmotivated, miserable quarantine days. My natural extroverted nature caused me to feel loneliness like never before. I was sucked into a hole of Twitter doomscrolling, hours of terrifying news reports, and the constant internal pressure of hunting for job openings that simply were not there. My hopes of working as a video editor grew slim as productions postponed for the year and creative friends flew to further corners of the world.

Slowly, I adapted. I started by crafting small projects all alone: my first animation, art collaging in a notebook, product photography for my Depop shop. Then I reached out to my community: my dad needed an introductory video for his new job, the bakery I work at asked for social media content, a digital Gen-Z magazine called Haloscope accepted me as a film writer. By first focusing on personal expansion, I was able to take back creative control and overcome pandemic isolation.

Being in lockdown has been taxing. I already suffer from anxiety and germaphobia, so this pandemic was bad news from the start. But what I’ve learned this year and will continue to practice is the value of social outreach. From gathering support from old classmates for the renaming of my high school in honor of our late first Black principal Dr. Derrick Nelson to promoting local BLM resources and small business efforts, I have utilized my social media platforms like never before.

Makeup is my creative outlet. It's a way to show the world who you are and what you’re feeling without saying a single word. I have been doing makeup for a little less than three years and still love the feeling I get when I do it. I was inspired by many drag queens to do makeup because they showed everyone their own sense of style, past, and future goals all through their makeup and fashion.Transitioning to a life with a pandemic was a very difficult experience for me. I suffer from both depression and anxiety so it was very difficult to endure a lot of change at once and not be able to see my friends and family. Doing makeup was able to keep me calm and give me peace when things got harder and being quarantined gave me more time to do my art. I did my makeup every other day at least because it was my calm in the storm that is corona. Having time to myself in quarantine also grew my confidence in my artistry and taught me that I should be proud of my work.

I’m a computer programmer and a self-taught watercolorist. I’m from Iran. And when pandemic started, we were working remotely and locked down at home for a while. It was at first funny to work from home but soon my daily timing had changed. I was awake at mid night and used to work more and more on my phone and laptop. I usually fell slept on my desk, which was why I painted myself in the first painting as sleeping on my laptop. I tried to show how I could see the light of day from the windows of Microsoft Windows desktop background. In the second painting I was home for about 2 months, and I had started to eat junk foods and became fat and still sticking to my laptop. And in this painting a little virus was free out there and looking at me with funny face. I was locked down while it was free.
Finally, the quarantine ended, they told we should work at office. Going out is good but weird. Wearing mask at work, avoiding your own colleagues. Many were and still are dying. We were told that kids wouldn’t catch the virus (we found later it wasn’t true) So I painted the third painting. I called it "next generation". To all orphans who have lost their parents but they were survivors. But maybe wearing a mask has become a new habit for next generation
The fourth painting is actually my first painting I made about Corona. I painted it when virus was in Wuhan. There was a doctor leaving his wife who going to a hospital in Wuhan on the news at that time.
The last painting was about Capitan Tom More, the British old Capitan who tried to walk and gather money to help people suffering from Virus. He is 100 years old. Surely it is hard for him to walk. So, I painted a cross on his shoulder. He is carrying the pain & suffering to make a better world (like what Jesus did)

My name is Sarah from Iraq, my hobby is drawing. After the home quarantine, I practiced my ideas in drawing and started to develop more in it, but the Covid 19 epidemic affected me and my daily routine, as I woke up every morning and went to my school where I learn more science and school knowledge and deal with my teachers and colleagues with sincere knowledge.  I was organizing my daily activities carefully, attending my lessons and dealing with Facebook in school, and I slept regularly and woke up regularly until my food I used to eat regularly, but this situation changed the scales of my life, so my appointments differed in all aspects of my life as I woke up late.  I only eat one meal a day, and this technique affected me terribly.  Where I used to go on the bus with my classmates and I was a little happy going and I felt that I was interacting in my school life.  But it is okay to share my ideas and drawings with my family and spend time on that.

I also suffered and experienced psychological anxiety, depression, and mental disorders, which affected my physical condition, so that I became sick and became ill with intestinal disorders and mental illnesses, as I went to an internist and treated myself and my father instructed me to do some sports exercises to strengthen my body and strengthen the respiratory system.  My father also instructed me to replace positive cases with negative cases, for example from sleep and depression, I replace this with sports and getting up early.  As well as reading books and browsing through social networking and other things.  I eat important foods that give the body immunity from diseases and replace disease - strength and toughness - and continue with my daily life normally and go out to some gardens in order to relieve myself from my psychological and physical affairs.

 Despite this!  I overcame depression and practiced my work and my hobbies, such as drawing, writing, etc., because I thought that Covid 19 was prolonged, and I do not mind continuing with daily life as much as possible.  I surfed on Facebook and other websites and contacted my colleagues in order to gain some important information for me and develop my knowledge abilities.

 I dealt with isolation and emptiness by filling this void with what increases my strength, so I practiced sports, jogging and some sports exercises at least an hour a day, this makes me able to resist diseases.  I also heard some of my favorite songs and music, watched some social series, and watched some beautiful, simple cartoon films.  Life is beautiful, and we must make it continue with bonding and social cohesion, and we always inform people of good and happiness, and the day of relief and joy must come.

My name is Sozyar Ahmed, I am from Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. Painting and drawing have always been my hobby and talent that I am developing every day to become better and better at them. This pandemic hasn’t effected my family in a major way but it gave me a lot of time to spend with them and communicate with them more. But for me it actually effected my mental health, because usually I kept myself busy with university’s work and studies, but now that I have to be home and I have nothing to distract me, my mental issues are starting to come out again specially my anxiety.
On the first months my anxiety was at its peak when I couldn’t even think straight and most of the times I couldn’t eat nor sleep peacefully but painting kept me calm and saint, the moment I put my brush on the canvas my mind goes off of my anxiety thoughts, so it gives my brain a break from all of my thoughts and prevents my body from having anxiety attacks. And you can see that in the sketches I have done (you can see them on my Instagram) they are mostly my anxiety thoughts that I transformed into drawings.
I guess I can say the way the virus affected my work was in a positive way, because I have to stay home more often and that way I have more time to paint and practice new tricks or styles of painting, so this way I don’t feel lonely so often, although I was never a social person myself, but the more I paint the more I can cope with the isolation, it’s like the canvas becomes someone I can speak to with my brush, and that way I feel less lonely.

How has Covid 19 had an impact on your work?
When the Pandemic started, I started a collaboration with a group of people related to the healthcare field that started a Blog (Coronavirus en Positivo) in an online newspaper (Público). The project, under the name of ESCUCHADORAS DE  VOCES (voice listeners), was initially going to focus exclusively on mental health, but with the pandemic,  it transformed into a wider project that talked about health recommendations and topics related to COVID 19.
I made a drawing every day for 100 days, to illustrate the texts to be published on the blog. That greatly affected my work, since I had to work at a faster pace and interpret other people´s ideas instead of just my own. It was very challenging but it kept my mind active during the quarantine. Some of these illustrations, like those that I submitted for this project, were very autobiographic. They helped me channel my feelings and uncertainties, and also sometimes they soothed me when I felt lonesome or when I was experiencing some Kind of anxiety.
The first one, “Self Reflection” was done during the first weeks of the pandemic and accompanied a post that talked about the behavior of the people in mental health programs during the lockdown. This drawing is an introspective self-portrait that tried to offer hope and a positive view of the future when everything seemed dark like the coffee in the cup.

How are u coping with the lockdown and social isolation?
The second work that I submit it is titled “Distress”, it accompanied a text that talked about the distress data during the lockdown. It was done during the de-escalation process. I used that text as an inspiration, but the image is again a self-portrait or how I felt at the moment. I identified with those who suffered distress. After the lockdown, people in my country were allowed to start going out for walks and even meet other people keeping the proper measures, but I still had trouble leaving my house. I was scared, for a while, I think I had what it is called “The cabin syndrome”. I saw the world as an uncertain, dangerous, and hostile environment, and it took me some time to willingly leave my house to socialize or walk.
I know that, right now, a lot of people around the world are dealing with mental health problems. As an example, new data about mental health and suicide ideation during the month of June in the USA has recently been published, showing that it has significantly increased.
To all of you that are struggling, I want to tell you: You are not alone.  Let´s talk about mental health, let´s also talk about suicide in a respectful and appropriate manner,  WHO recommended communication as a prevention strategy. Let´s all work together to destroy the taboos and stigma that surround these matters.


How this pandemic affected you your family and your daily routine?
I lived through confinement on my own. Some of my close relatives lived nearby and the rest of my close family was confined further away. Sometimes it was hard not to be able to see them knowing that some of them were nearby. We stayed connected through video and phone calls. The situation even brought me closer to my cousins with whom I video chatted every day. The harder part for me was not being able to touch anybody for almost three months, and even when the confinement was eased in Spain, I still did not go near anyone, following the Health Ministry recommendations.

English:
My name is Sarmad, I’m from Erbil, Iraq and currently living in Istanbul. I’m an artist, it’s my hobby and my profession, I do digital art most of the time, with COVID-19 my daily routine has changed, since I was going to the production company I work in, but with the pandemic I spend all my time drawing and writing at home.
I wasn’t going out that much. I like to work from home, but this helped me organize my time and see my family more, it was easy for me to adjust, not going out and seeing my friends, I want to be alone while I’m working, I can be more creative this way, so it was an opportunity for me to level up my drawing skills, trying new things, writing more stories, making up all that lost time by working extra, drawing my comics and learning more about 2D and 3D animation.
One positive point is that I know I can work more than I did before, so when this pandemic ends I should continue and always learn new things and improve, drawing and writing are a never ending experience for me, so I’m grateful because the work I do for a living is also my hobby, I find this as a bonus and an advantage.
 I set a plan when the lockdown began, that I should be someone else when this pandemic ends, that I should be better at drawing and writing, and start working on things I’ve delayed for a long time, I think I did a good job and I hope I can continue this way.

Arabic:
أنا سرمد, ولدت وعشت في اربيل,عراق وحاليا أعيش في اسطنبول, هوايتي هي الرسم وهو أيضاً عملي, غالباً أعمل كرسّام رقمي. مع قدوم فايروس كوفيد-19 تغير روتيني اليومي وطريقة حياتي قليلاً, كنت أذهب لشركة الانتاج التي أعمل بها لكن الآن أقضي جميع وقتي أرسم وأكتب في البيت.
أحب العمل في البيت لذلك لم أكن أخرج كثيرا حتى قبل الحجر الصحي, لكن الحجر ساعدني على تنظيم وقتي وأصبحت أقضي أوقاتاً أكثر مع عائلتي, لم يكن من الصعب علي التأقلم على هذا الوضع, عدم الخروج من البيت وعدم رؤية أصدقائي لأنني معتاد على العمل وحيداً, أشعر بأنني أبدع أكثر عندما أعمل وحيداً بعيداً عن الضجيج, لذا الحجر كان بمثابة فرصة لي لأتحسن أكثر في الرسم وأجرب أشياء جديدة, أكتب المزيد من القصص, ولأعوض الوقت الذي أهدرته, وساعدني لكتابة ورسم قصصي المصورة, وأتعلم أكثر عن التحريك الثنائي والثلاثي الأبعاد.
ومن النقاط الأيجابية للحجر, تعلمت بأنني قادر على العمل أكثر مما كنت أعمل من قبل, لذلك يجب علي الاستمرار هكذا حتى عندما ينتهي وقت الحجر الصحي وأسعى للمزيد وأطوّر مهاراتي باستمرار, أنا ممتن لأن عملي هو هوايتي, أشعر بأنها أفضلية ويجب علي استغلالها, لأنني لا أشعر بالممل عند كتابتي للقصص أو عندما أرسم, لذلك هي تجربة ممتعة لا حدود لها بالنسبة لي.
عندما بدأ وقت الحجر الصحي, وضعت خطة عمل وأخبرت نفسي بأن يجب عليّ أن أكون شخصاً آخر عند انتهاء الحجر, يجب أن أكون رساماً وكاتباً أفضل بكثير, وأبدا العمل على الأشياء التي كنت أهملها لوقت طويل. أشعر بأنني أنجزت أمورأ أفضل, وأنوي
على الاستمرار هكذا.

من ناوم سەرمەدە لە شاری هەولێری وڵاتی عیراق لەدایکبوومه  وە لە ێیستادا لە ئەستەنبول دەژێم خولیای وێنه کێشینم هەیە و لەهەمان کاتیشدا کاری منه لەزۆری کاتەکانم وێنەی دیجیتال دەکێشم لەگەل هاتنی  ڤایرۆسی كۆڤید-19 رۆتینی رۆژانەم گۆڕا ئەرۆیشتم بو کۆمپانیای پرودەکشن که کارم تێیدا ئەکرد بەڵام له ئێستادا زوربەی کاتەکانم له ماڵ بەسەردەبم.