GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Alphabet Magic

  • delta

    Just a simple attempt with foundational hand, albeit with the ascenders slightly short.

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    Reinhard Staupe designed this little, brilliant memory game, Sherlock: go around a circle of eight cards and name them before flipping them up. If you land on a card that you previously remembered, grab the card, refill the slot, and flip the other cards back down for the next player’s turn.

    As an adult with too much on my mind, my daughter absolutely destroys me. The boy can play too. He doesn’t play well, but he understands the rules.

    The joy is in watching the kids play together. They find certain cards hilarious for no obvious reason. Especially the sock, which is absolutely, gut wrenchingly funny.

    Not the drawing, it’s just a green calf-length sock. The illustrator wasn’t trying to be funny. The publisher told Oliver Freudenreich to draw a sock, which he did.

    But don’t tell that to the kids—that sock taps into the raw, mystical connection developed over four years of fighting, crying, and laughing.

    —February 2022

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  • charlie

    It’s only been a few months since I made this piece and I’m not sure if I could do it again (it took so attempts to even get to this one!)

    Looking at it with fresh eyes, I also wonder if the h should have tied into the flourish of the C. Such combinations rarely work, but it hits every once in a while. One reason I take so many shots.

    The ink is a Noodlers Red-Black that was super dark, but watered down to this lovely burgundy.

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    I wandered into a game store and asked the salesman for suggestions now that kids have preferences that I can describe.

    I walked out with a couple of games that will be put in a big box of games that I’ve bought for the kids, to be slowly shared over birthdays and holidays.

    While driving home, I realized that we only got six more with her. Ten with him, before the nest is empty.

    They grow up so fast, hopefully that box will be empty by 2036.

    —January 2026

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  • bravo

    Even a 9×12 sheet can’t fit a 3″ brush without ligatures and a pile of failures.

    At this point, it’s only remarkable when I’m satisfied after a few attempts.

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    Years ago, we bought a toy bird for the girl that records and repeats short snippets. The boy is now well past her age then, but two fresh batteries and it squawks again. They’re upstairs, talking, singing. and laughing at distorted tweets.

    In the other ear, Mama is on the phone, searching nutrition labels for high protein, high calorie foods to stem Grandpa’s weight loss. My mind searches for anything to thread these competing conversations across electronics, but I come up empty.

    Life isn’t tidy.

    —16 November 2025

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  • alpha

    I wanted to start this NATO alphabet series with something simple. I was also testing some new paper. Smooth is nice, but it highlights fingerprints. Once they are used up, I’ll focus on the sulfite paper, because it’s cheaper and can be used on both sides.

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    Thanks to Hazel Burgess for suggesting that I try blind contour drawing. It’s a great exercise!

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    And thanks to Jozsef Abranko for the nudge to use my gouache to paint (duh!)

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    I had been constipated with drawing for two decades before generative AI became a thing in 2022. When computers can create perfection in seconds, imperfection is now proof of humanity.

    Nothing like a digital existential challenge to get moving. I picked up the pen again, meditating on my right hand shaping the letters of the alphabet, morning after morning. That cycle was replaced in 2024 by calligraphy, but I always wanted to properly close out this practice that awoke my spirit after such a long hiatus.

    I hope you enjoy these old sketches paired with new graphs and my new explorations in gouache.

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  • colors

    The kids found an old set of travel watercolors from high school—they’re almost thirty years old!

    I need to give these a good run, they should have been used up a long time ago!

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    One morning I sketched my hand to Glen Gould’s 1982 Goldberg Variations.

    It was a sublime moment, only matched by an early morning reading of the Becher’s Water Towers.

    Like then, my inner world expanded to fill the entire universe through focusing upon this here now.

    Highly recommended, 32 out of 10.

    —August 23, 2023

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  • dots

    Some creative cropping to get the number. But yes, that pavement does head off in the angle, even though I think it should have stayed orthogonal!

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    I’m Marco Polo
    stumbling through grandma’s bedroom

    Marco!

    they say I can’t bend
    she hides in a closet
    he hides on a bed

    POLO!

    nothing to do
    when your waist is frozen

    —August 2023

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  • sides

    Setting out on the jaunt, I knew where to find an easy eight.

    But definitely got lucky with the airplane!

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    the light monster
    shuffling in shadows
    waiting…

    RAWR!!!

    —August 2023

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  • drips

    I found this on a small dog run in a local subdivision. I guess you shouldn’t park to the left, but there’s some space to the right.

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    they found a big bubble jar
    and two water pistols

    in slow evening heat
    blasting bubbles
    after sunset

    shooting into the cruel
    golden hour twilight

    —August 26, 2023

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  • stripes

    I had to cheat a little for this one. Is this six stripes or seven? And there’s more stripes if I shift the frame a little.

    In collecting these numbers, I went out on an early morning walk and snagged a bunch of them. I had trouble with four and six, but it doesn’t take much to find the numbers and letters out there.

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    They created a library after an episode of Bluey,
    Furniture piled in the center of the room as a reference desk.

    They lined my books along the wall “for adults”.
    (They already had a shelf books from the library district)

    Mini was the library pet,
    Mr. Little Wooden Guy held up signs.

    I was a teacher bringing a class of stuffies,
    Field trip to the the library!

    The next day, I returned with a family of bears,
    Daddy, Mommy, Bear Bear, and Adventure.

    When the show was ready, they ushered us into the bedroom stage,
    We bought the cheap seats—they came with a sheet over my head.

    I watched the shadows of the boy and girl,
    Dancing with abandon.

    —26 August 2023

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  • blades

    As an architect, I stare at ceilings. While being wheeled to the MRI and getting a drain stabbed into my liver, my main memory was watching the details where the ceilings met the hospital walls.

    Ceiling fans, especially with light kits, are an unloved feature of residential architecture. In today’s conditioned age, they are somewhat redundant. But they’re still part of life in a hot climate. Even if they don’t get used, it’s better to have one—with four to six blades—than to have none.

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    My wife made homemade noodles last night. She uses a recipe that is 2 parts flour, 1 part water, and 1part eggs.

    I’m a fan of a decadent 3:2 flour to egg recipe. But no matter, her noodles were tasty and springy. It was great in a soup, then as part of a stir fry, and finally as a treat for lunch.

    When we first started making noodles, we rolled it by hand. That’s a lot of work! So we got a KitchenAid attachment, which was expensive but has been among our most used kitchen gadgets.

    These noodles might be an unnecessary expense of time and money, but what a savory little luxury!

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