The cartoonist who draws her last sight before sleep
At 11.47pm, when most of Melbourne has gone quiet except for the occasional tram bell and a possum on the roof, Nina Vale opens a small sketchbook beside her bed. She draws whatever is in front of her: a chipped bedside glass, a stripe of moonlight, her partner’s hand resting on the quilt, or the blue glow of a phone abandoned face down. The drawings take less than five minutes, but they have become the final punctuation mark in her day.
Vale’s nightly sketches began as a way to settle an overactive mind. They have since become a popular online series, a small exhibition, and a gentle archive of ordinary Australian life. In a conversation shared through Mass Musings, she talks about observation, creative discipline, insomnia, and why the last thing we see before sleep can reveal more than a carefully planned self-portrait.
The ritual began with a restless mind
“I was trying to stop treating bedtime like a meeting I had to prepare for,” Vale says. “I’d get into bed and remember emails, unfinished drawings, groceries, conversations from three years ago. Drawing gave those thoughts somewhere else to go.”
Her first bedtime sketch was of a smoke alarm. It hung above her in the rented Brunswick flat she shared with two friends, its small red light blinking through the darkness. “It was incredibly boring, which was exactly why it worked. I had to look at one object without asking it to become a masterpiece.”
The rule remains simple: one drawing, one object, no revisions. If she falls asleep before drawing, the ritual is allowed to disappear for a night. That flexibility matters to Vale, especially during long stretches of freelance work when a deadline for a children’s book illustration can push dinner, exercise and rest into the same untidy block.
Ordinary objects carry a surprising charge
Vale’s cartoons are spare, expressive and slightly strange. A lamp might have a worried face. A half-read novel can appear to be sighing. A pair of socks left beside the bed becomes a tiny domestic landscape. Yet she insists that the humour comes from attention rather than invention.
“People think cartooning starts with a joke,” she says. “For me, it starts with noticing the relationship between things. The mug is too close to the laptop. The curtain is making a shape that looks like a person. My brain adds the emotional weather.”
That emotional weather changes with place. On humid Brisbane nights, her drawings become looser and more crowded, as though the air itself is taking up space. In Sydney, she notices reflected light from apartment towers and the distant rhythm of traffic. When she visits family in Adelaide, the last image is often a low, dry horizon or the kitchen clock above a table covered in fruit.
Her audience recognises these small details. Australians know the particular late-night glow of a servo sign, the clatter of bins being collected early, and the way a summer evening can stay bright long after dinner. Vale’s work turns those familiar sensations into a visual diary without making them feel polished or nostalgic.
| Drawing approach | What Vale does | Creative benefit | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-minute observation | Draws the nearest object without planning | Builds focus and lowers pressure | Busy weeknights |
| Comedic character sketch | Gives an object a mood or voice | Releases tension through humour | Restless evenings |
| Bedroom still life | Combines three or four visible details | Creates a sense of place | Travel or unfamiliar rooms |
| Digital night sketch | Uses a tablet with low brightness | Makes sharing quick and accessible | Audience-led projects |
| Memory drawing | Recreates the final image the next morning | Tests what the mind retained | Deeper personal reflection |
A private practice became a public series
Vale posted the drawings online only after a friend found the sketchbook on a kitchen table. The friend photographed three pages and encouraged her to share them. Within weeks, followers began sending their own final images: a ceiling fan in Perth, a sleeping dog in Hobart, a pile of school uniforms in Newcastle.
“The project changed when people started replying with their version of bedtime,” Vale says. “It stopped being a performance of my routine and became a shared pause. Someone would send a drawing from a hospital room or a hostel in Cairns, and suddenly the series had a much bigger emotional range.”
She is careful about the boundary between intimacy and exposure. No one appears in the drawings without permission, and she avoids turning difficult nights into content on demand. The most affecting images are often the least dramatic: a water bottle after a hot day, a child’s night light, an alarm clock showing 5.12am.
That restraint has helped the series travel. A small independent publisher in Victoria recently released a limited risograph booklet, while a Perth gallery included several pages in a group show about domestic rituals. Vale says the Australian illustration market rewards work that feels personal but can still live comfortably across print, exhibitions, social platforms and workshops.
Sleep is part of the creative process
The nightly drawing does not guarantee better sleep, and Vale refuses to describe it as a cure for anxiety. “Sometimes the sketch is calming. Sometimes I draw a very accurate picture of being awake and annoyed,” she says. “The value is that I’m meeting the moment instead of fighting it.”
Her sleep routine is deliberately practical. Screens go dim after ten, the sketchbook stays open to a blank page, and she keeps a soft mechanical pencil nearby. She does not use scented candles or complicated productivity systems. On hot nights, a fan runs beside the bed; during Melbourne’s winter, the sketchbook may be balanced on a folded jumper because the room is too cold to linger in.
The ritual has also changed how she approaches commissioned work. Rather than forcing an idea to arrive at a desk, she collects visual fragments throughout the day. A handwritten sign at a Footscray café, a bird balancing on a power line, or the colour of a supermarket receipt can become the starting point for a comic several weeks later.
“Rest isn’t the opposite of making,” Vale says. “It’s where the mind sorts the material. You still have to show up and draw, but you don’t have to squeeze every idea out of yourself at once.”
A gentle way to make noticing habitual
Vale’s practice is accessible because it does not depend on expensive materials, a spare studio or a perfectly quiet home. The point is not to create an impressive bedtime illustration. It is to notice one small thing before the day disappears.
For anyone adapting the idea to Australian routines, she recommends keeping the exercise short and local: draw the view from a share house in Newtown, the verandah light in regional Victoria, or the shadow of a ceiling fan during a Queensland summer. The final image can stay private, become part of a sketchbook, or join a community art project.
- Keep a pocket-sized sketchbook beside the bed.
- Choose one visible object rather than searching for a clever subject.
- Set a five-minute limit so the practice cannot become another obligation.
- Use a blunt pencil, pen or simple drawing app instead of waiting for ideal materials.
- Let the image remain imperfect, especially on tired or difficult nights.
- Date each sketch to build a visual record of changing rooms, seasons and moods.
- Share selectively, with attention to privacy and the people represented.
Before we finish, Vale draws the small recorder on the table between us. It has a silver button, a tangled charging cable and a cracked corner. She gives it two dot eyes and a resigned little mouth. “That’s tonight’s last thing,” she says. “It looks like it has also had a long day.”
The sketch is quick, funny and recognisably hers. It holds the room for a moment, then the conversation ends, leaving behind the same quiet permission her project offers everyone: look closely, make something small, and let the day become still.