It looks like that for the time being, the drawings resemble plants and trees. I have discarded several attempts since the last post because knowing I was planning on posting the drawings I tried too hard to be different. I also found myself worried about what my blog viewers might think. And, I don’t know why I let that worry me because my viewers consist of a few close friends.

This small tree is nothing unusual but it was a few moments enjoying the experience with the inner critic turned off.

Tree | pen & ink | 1.25 inches wide by 1.75 inches tall

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A Spotted Snake coloring page for use at home or in the classroom. Click on the image to enlarge and then print.

© Scott E Franson | 2009

Drawing without a preconceived idea is a meditation for me. It puts me in a mental state of tranquility. There is no pressure that the final drawing will result in a work of art. The risk is small because if it doesn’t work the garbage can is right next to my desk. I enjoy watching the lines build and experiencing the discovery during the process. It is relaxing and satisfying.

Once the drawings are finished I have tried to find value in them and other than the experience, but I can’t. I have thought about selling them but placing a monetary value on bits of paper and lines of ink is a challenge that I have yet to achieve. So for now they are just paper and ink. The drawings are an artifact of a moment of peace, calm and relaxation.

Growing | pen & ink | 1.25 inches wide by 6 inches tall

“I know very well that knowledge gained in practice can be only very partially conveyed in words.”

Lewis F. Day | pattern designer
Pattern Design, Dover Publications, Inc., pg vii

“By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately and well.”

Robert Bringhurst on the rules of typography from Elements of Typographic Style, pg 10

This may seem self-evident, but I believe most people have the idea that teaching is essentially about transfering a body of facts of technical information to a student. This of course, is part of teaching, but creating an attitude toward those facts is even more significant.

Milton Glaser | artist, designer and educator, The Education of a Graphic Designer, edited by Steven Heller, pg 184

The Blob will glub him.

The Golux from The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber
The Thirteen Clocks is a wonderful read-aloud book. The story is absurdly perfect for the brilliant words that are fun to read over and over again.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch . . .

I tried to ignore it but discovered that ignoring it wouldn’t make the reality of a mouse in the bedroom go away.

The lights went on.

I quietly stalked the scratching creature, but I am not a good hunter when I am only in my underclothing.

The lights went off.

Moments later, the small creature ran across my chest and over my pillow. “Get up!” I yelled to my wife. “There is a mouse in the bed!”

The lights went on.

Now we were both stalking the creature. My wife saw it first running along the wall. I knew that I would be facing the task of disposing of the creature and looked around for something to use. That is when I saw my winter gloves sitting on my shelf by my bed. I put them on and returned to the hunt.

The mouse ran into our closet and with a little coaxing from Brenda, it ran behind a small set of drawers into my gloved hands. Now what? I didn’t want to kill it but I must be a man in front of my wife. “Squish it ?” I thought as the mouse wiggled inside of my gloved palms. “Throw it into the yard!” said Brenda. With great relief at not needing to sacrifice my male ego, we ran down the hall to the front door. She opened the door, I swung my arms, opened my gloved hands and saw with my own eyes that mice can fly. The small furry dark spot flew into the dark night sky and disappeared.

We both stood there disrobed with the front door wide open, but I wasn’t embarrassed because I was wearing gloves.

The visual aesthetics that frame and define content are much more than simply a “skin” that we can apply or discard without consequence.

Patrick Lynch | writer, artist, and web designer, Visual Decision Making, A List Apart No. 286, http://www.alistapart.com/articles/visual-decision-making

The artist’s hand does not crawl aimlessly over the paper and trail behind it flowers of the imagination.

Lewis F. Day | Pattern Design

It was a great Halloween evening. We went to visit the grandparents with a flower, a polar bear, a fortune teller and something in a black sheet of fabric. There was lots of good soup and and conversation. We laughed a lot and I really did eat too many M&Ms.

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He is all white with soft pink eyes but there is nothing “soft” about Benjamin Bunny. Inch long claws have carved scars into the flesh of several family members. I use to laugh at the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but now I know that that show was a documentary.

“I’m an orphan!” my youngest said to her friend proudly.

“No your not!”
“Yes I am! My mom and dad said so!”

We just stopped at my parents for a minute to pick up 2 children. Surely Pria would be OK in the front yard. As we planned to leave we called for her and she didn’t come. Then we heard the fireworks from down the street. She hates fireworks. We looked and called and looked and called the police and looked until dark. It was no use, she could be anywhere and fireworks were going off all over town.

After 10 years the rope finally breaks and our swing is a sit. I am so glad it didn't involve a visit to the emergency room. This is how it went down.

Bad grades in Algebra. How can that be? It can be because she reads all day. We had to ground her from books.

As we left for our doctors appointment/wedding/family reunion last week I locked the front door and walked past out front flower bed on the way to the car. We have been getting complements since the flowers started to bloom. I would take some credit, but all credit belongs to a kind neighbor who panted it for us when we were in Salt Lake recovering from Liver Transplant. The neighbor is the kind of gardener that plants with a ruler. All of the plants are just the right height and just the right distance apart. That is why I was curious about the 50+ little green sprouts about one inch high scattered throughout the flower bed. I could tell that they were sunflowers. So on our drive I asked Brenda about the sunflowers in the flower bed she smiled and blamed it on my daughter who immediately gave her the credit for the idea. Scattered sunshine is growing among the meticulously measured and planned. I guess some randomness keeps life interesting.

Goats can climb trees. I’ve heard about it, but now I’ve seen it. It makes sense, they climb mountains. Well, goats also like more than anything else, the one thing that is just out of reach. They climb and strain and struggle when right around them is all they could ever want. I guess there is a good reason baby goats are called kids.

When everyone comes home from camping trips they bring a mountain of work with them. I never knew we had so many clothes. I helped fold and fold and fold. Just when I thought we were making progress another mountain would loom up before us. The white flag at the top is not a victory flag, it is for surrender. I think unlike Everest, laundry is a mountain that no one will ever finish climbing.

What is brown and sticky?

Two days before Halloween and the costumes are done. The kids wanted to be parrots and Brenda sewed long strips of material onto a sweatshirt to simulate feathers. The kids loved them and wore them all around the house. They did end up looking a bit more like a piñata than a parrot, but the kids didn’t care.