It was only last week that they were allowed to interact in hallways and other common areas without masks.

For many months, they couldn't leave their rooms. Seaman moved in to Maplewood just two weeks before the pandemic restrictions cut residents off from the outside world. 'After a long life, I'm back doing what I did when I was 11 years old,' he said. He spends about six hours a day working on his intricate, fanciful illustrations, starting with pencil sketches and finishing with ink, colored pencil and watercolor. Tuesday marked one year since Seaman started churning out 'daily doodles' from his small, one-room apartment at the Maplewood Assisted Living facility in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. 'But in my introvert phase, I would love to go up to my room where I had a drawing table kind of desk and I'd spend hours up there drawing pictures. 'As a kid, I kept lurching between being a loner and being an extrovert,' he said. But it took the coronavirus pandemic to fully return him to his passion. Seaman, 88, has been drawing since he was a boy, and at age 60, left a real estate career to pursue his hobby professionally. Much like the round clock faces, gears and planets that often populate his artwork, Robert Seaman has come full circle.

The daily doodle