GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Alphabet Magic

  • hotel

    Before starting the NATO run, I worked through Arthur Baker’s book of swash capitals. The straight brush also loves the blocky forms of Rudolf Koch’s Neuland. The two got mashed together here.

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    After tower defense on Blooket,
    They made me a night zombie,
    Seeking brains in the dark while
    They hid under folded sleeping pad huts.

    Brains, brains!

    Morning comes the sun!
    Away I go!
    They ran into the playroom to fortify
    With pot lid shields and
    Miso containers shooting arrows.

    pew pew pew!

    Dangerous labor,
    This zombie gig.

    —September 2023

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  • golf

    and a few monsters.

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    blarg blarg beasts

    they waved their arms like noodles
    splayed legs meander through the bedroom
    if you get close to another blarg blarg, give them a big hug!
    i blarg-ed Mama.

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    he said i was a ready monster.
    ready, reaady, reaaady
    flapping little arms like a t-rex

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    i’m an oig monster
    walking through the kitchen
    hunched over
    bent chicken wing arms

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    a baoulu baoulu
    hovers around the safe zone
    breast strokes to swoop
    kids hopping off their beds
    dragged into the dark

    —August 2023

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  • foxtrot

    I had a lot of trouble with the cursive on this one. I need to go back to more rigid practice and to rebuild into a more expressive script.

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    I tried drawing with my right hand
    she exclaimed that’s easy!

    sketching at dinner
    he saw me staring

    he dove under
    she did too

    they didn’t want
    bad monster to draw them

    I switched targets—
    mama, surfing the phone

    —August 2023

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  • echo

    It took many tries to get the two tone brush to work. I don’t recall being happy with any of the results, even after the edits in the computer. Another month later, I’m really happy with this one.

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    they piled stuffies on the chair and called me to the room

    I stood behind the chair and held up my hand

    she grabbed a plastic tube
    set it down,
    dropped a quarter,
    and pushed the joystick

    zzt zzzt zzzzt
    BOOP!

    the hand descended
    grabbed Bear-Bear and George

    they slipped out,
    try again!

    this time, Peppa

    and again!

    a Boggle set
    and Unicorn

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    a few weeks later at Primm

    in front of a claw machine.

    I had only one dollar

    we got a Pikachu!

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    —August 2023

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  • 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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