I never learned this secret handshake and have no idea where to start because I'm a woman and my first-hand experience is that "chat" environments = horrifying levels of shitty sexual harassment. So I would need more instructions than "freenode is awesome!"

find a py code base

I am assuming you mean Python. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, where might I look for a Python drawing app code base I might have some hope of playing with? Does it need to be FOSS?

Also thank you very much for this comment.

Edit in reply to your edit:

Thanks so much. Have noted the link to your comment.