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.
,
,
,
,
,
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.
I’m writing this on the last day of the 2025, and I hope things are going well 35 days into the new year. The week between holidays are always a bit weird, but the world spins back to life with the coming Monday and it’s off to the chaos of another twelve months.
,
5/5/25
forest pool eight stone wisps fly lumber today beyond genes fire chore smoke lake curfew
The italics looks a little rough. I normally prefer going big, but small can also highlight areas for improvement.
,
6/15/25
Cat on the balcony!
,
6/16/25
We had fun floating a few Vikings in a pan.
,
It was fun shaping the numeral one with the letters. I gave this to a friend to celebrate his kid’s first birthday.
,
6/21/25
Both figurative and architectural. Feels like this could be an entry into a real coffee shop, except that the door handle would slam into pedestrians walking past the store.
Serves the right.
,
We just made some 3-2-1 cookies. They had a ton of fun shaping these butterballs in the molds.
Washing all the stuff was a little less fun. But they were tasty.
Move over Dominion, this is my daughter’s new favorite game. Skip the buying, straight into drafting. Plus cute art!
We’ve played this two player, though I suspect it’s better with more. Coincidentally, I’ve been playing Magic The Gathering online in their Arena program. One of the main ways to play that game is also drafting.
Funny how card games are just a bundle of numbers and mechanics. Strip out the art and they all rhyme.
Daddy’s favorite game is Magic. My favorite game is SUSHI GO!!!!
—October 2021 ,
PPS—Dream Cakes, Ravensburger, 2014
When my daughter was younger, she would turn anything (non-stuffy) into cakes, so my sister gave us this game for Christmas.
At first, the girl didn’t want to play the game competitively, but she quickly realized this game is all just luck. She still gets annoyed if her baby brother does well.
Maybe this will be the gateway to teaching her to become a good loser. I’m not a competitive guy. Maybe it’s because I fear failure so much that I suppress myself. Avoiding goals sidesteps disappointment!
Then again, I have simple goals. I always prefer slow and steady strategies. I’d rather lock up 2nd place than risk everything for a win. I enjoy being part of a well played game. I applaud a competitor’s brilliance, and I chuckle when lady luck stabs me in the spleen.
There are many ways to game—maybe she’ll settle on just playing cooperative games. But the real world doesn’t always let you turn something into a “team game” when you’re behind. Sometimes you will lose, however small the stakes.
If this boardgame starts that process where she can handle losing, then its a good start.
—January 2022, Update: it turns out it was the boy who really hates competitive games. Aside from Snorta and Chess, he exclusively plays cooperative, often to the boredom of his sister.
,
PPPS—Cardline Animals, Info, year
This isn’t a game, just a deck of cards with great art and an interesting concept.
To be fair, publisher doesn’t pretend there is much of a game. It’s just placing animals in order of weight, length, or life expectancy. And it’s as compelling an experience as as it sounds on paper.
But we’ve played with the cards a lot, and spent one afternoon placing all the cards against a long tape measure to see the real length of these animals.
And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Matthew 5:3-12
,
I was just short on room to scribe it on a single one page, so this was stitched at the line break above “Rejoice…”. Fortunately, a light table and a computer made for an easy pairing. It also let me relocate the citation and signature to a better location. And take a second shot on the last those last four lines to correct a couple of mistakes.
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.
,
,
,
,
,
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.
Having worked in small firms, I’ve always been the young guy. Even that time I went corporate, I ended up being the junior staff member on a major project.
That’s fine. I learn more from the experienced folks.
So it was a bit odd turning Owner and suddenly becoming an old guy. In the few cases where I’m younger, it was by a year or two, not decades.
Middle age is odd. They say architects don’t blossom till they are fifty. That was forever away, now just three years out.
I’ve gone through the stereotypical “now what” moment, but I’m also comfortably confident in my skills. There’s still plenty to explore, but I have much to share with the next generation.
Maybe this OPM letter was a my way to share some notes along this journey.
~
Some Links
Over the past few years I’ve fallen hard for calligraphy. It’s why this letter took a long hiatus. You can graph with the most simple of materials, but here are some things that stand out.
The Pilot Parallel was my introduction to calligraphy. As a lefty, I had long thought it impossible, but once I got my hands on one of these pens, I just had to try (with the help of YouTube). It’s an inexpensive pen with none of the hassle of dip pens. If you’re not sure what size to get, go big with the 6.0mm.
What to graph on? Anything will do, but normal printer paper will bleed, as will binder paper. The best value I found was acid-free sulfite paper from Blicks, which is usable on both sides.
If you get deeper into the hobby, then splurge with the Brody Neuenschwander Handwritmic Ruling pen. I also enjoy the Dreaming Dogs ruling pens (especially for alternative shapes), but the Handwritmic has the best build quality with a nib that can handle a variety of scripts.
LED light tables are super cheap now. Mine is just a non-name brand from Amazon. Print out guidelines on paper and now you won’t have to rule your sheets all the time.
And finally books, books and more books.
Any edition of the Speedball Textbook is a good start (I’ve got 12, 16, and 20-25).
I’m fond of Arthur Baker’s Foundational Calligraphy Manual because he elucidates a technique of twisting the nib, which feels really weird until it’s natural. At this point I’ve picked up all of his books.
A wild card, out-of-the-box gem is Scott Kim’s mind twisting Inversions.
And no list of books would be complete without grand matron Sheila Water’s epic Foundations of Calligraphy. I find this one intimidating—high standards are great, but for a hobby, fun comes first. But when you get serious, it’s a must-have.
At this pace, I’ll be a year behind, except that this new year has come with a new habit—less socialing, more zining. After I make a few zines, maybe I’ll get into the selling and distribution business.
Or may not.
Anyways, there will be less catching up of old Substack Notes.
,
4/13/25
jump easy enter vector five galaxies between you and remembrance Georgia come back into life
In my current calligraphy practice, I’ve been focusing on the letters more than choosing words, hence my reliance on word lists.
These poetry hauls are fun opportunities to play with smaller scripts arranged on a page. I only have to pick five words to turn the given ten into a fifteen word poem.
,
4/20/25
Celebrating Easter with the most destructive beast known to mankind.
,
5/25/25
Celebrating my colleagues’ new lives. Yes, our team had babyx2 last summer!
,
5/28/25
Gemini Annie has two many
An inside joke with an online buddy who worked with a pair of cute twins at her old job.
I’m not a fan of the astrological words, certainly not in the context of making 5WP’s. But I’m in a “collect them all” mood with all of the Inktober challenges.
,
6/1/25
Vista, playing with folds inside folds.
,
I just listened to a podcast with a business professor who teaches about power. It was grating, until they had a discussion about the price of power.
In so many words Jeffrey Pfeffer acknowledged—when you got power, power got you.
I’ve seen this dynamic over the years. It’s why I’ve been fairly unambitious in my career. I do good work and this has stumbled me upwards, but I’ve never pressed for the next promotion because there is no free lunch in corporations.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Exploration Peak
We went to the park with the kids. After the playground got busy, we hiked up the trail to the picnic structures on top of the hill. When we got there, the girl noticed that the benches had initials carved all over them.
She asked why people would do this. I responded that people want to make their mark in this world, even if it means vandalizing our public property. Not particularly noble, but I get it.
While hiking down the hill I thought of Bernard Tschumi’s follies. Of course, those big red structures are another stratosphere of architectural sophistication compared to picnic canopies.
It made me nostalgic for college, with memories of famous architects. Gods in our eyes; just men making their mark in our world.
—October 2021
,
PPS—The turtle sandbox
The kids rediscovered the sandbox. A big green plastic turtle with a couple feet/stools and some toys. It’s a bittersweet object. We got it long ago, before the boy was a concept in our world.
He’s now old enough to play with himself in this box. He appreciates the company, but he keeps himself contented moving sand around. Our daughter is still young enough to enjoy the moment, but lost patience after a while.
Kids are fickle, but that means they can also come back to rediscover old joys, while we adults live at a much higher gear, too bored to watch children pushing sand. I rationally understand this is a vanishingly short moment, but my brain craves the high octane sugar buried in the telephone computer.
In twenty years, I hope that I’ll remember the evening light, the sand in my feet, and the fading Vegas summer heat before the start of fall, not this aching addiction to a glowing screen.
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.
,
,
Thanks to Hazel Burgess for suggesting that I try blind contour drawing. It’s a great exercise!
,
,
And thanks to Jozsef Abranko for the nudge to use my gouache to paint (duh!)
,
,
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.
Starting the New Year marching through pieces from eight months ago, then again, it’s fun to explore the (recent) past.
,
4/1/2025
Looking back, I should made a lot more of these backlit photos on the light tablet. I remember when light tables were big pieces of furniture. Now they are thin cheap LED’s powered by a USB-C cable.
After making this piece, I realized that this prompt was likely inspired by the TV show Severance. So I made a popup based on that logo as well.
,
4/5/2025
state dinner droned past six rain lust through parged age never duplicate time flowing away
I spent a month playing with fractur script. Normally I use a 6.0mm nib, so it’s fun to drop down to the 2.4mm and fit more than a few words on a page.
,
4/7
A simple slice, with the sliver tucked into its original cut.
,
4/10/2025
A literal take on the Lego form as I was studying the 3+1 (above) versus 2+2 (below) folds.
,
4/18/2025
Tigers hunt in the tall grass.
,
I’ve been on a good run of working ahead, so it’s been weird to write in the present tense when it isn’t Thanksgiving yet. Moving forward, I might drop this pretense until I’m back to being behind “schedule”.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Journey to the West, CCTV, 1986
After I recounted the story of the jade rabbit from chapter 95, my daughter wanted to watch the story. The episode adapted the novel well, hitting the key points while abridging and eliding non-critical aspects. The producers spun the story with a moral exhorting Piggy to behave, but otherwise followed the original.
Indeed, they followed the spirit perfectly. The novel is itself an artful collection of folk tales, so this was a figuratively faithful translation into a new medium.
Unfortunately, the production shows its age. The pacing is a little stilted and the budget is much less than one expects with modern fare. I imagine two audiences for this show—rewatching for nostalgia and for nerds to analyze how the novel was adapted to the television medium.
I would fit the latter group, but having no fondness for live action TV, this series isn’t for me, definitely not for a 30 hour commitment.
After completing the novel, I watched the final episode of the show. I love how they stayed faithful to the original story while closing it in its campy, endearing way. I see why this show has been replayed on TV every since year since its original broadcast. I watched a trailer of a 2011 take on the novel and the old practical effects of the original are vastly more appealing than cheap, outdated CGI.
—October 2021
,
PPS—Cowboy Bebop, Netflix, 2021
I don’t know how to remake a classic, except that this ain’t it. The production is of decent quality, though imperfect. John Cho is a little old. None of the actors hits their notes dead on.
This adaptation is trapped in the uncanny valley of recreating the past (episode 1) and creating its own identity (episode 2). The first episode missed the mark (a damn near impossible task), and the second episode proved it was going in a direction that I wasn’t interested in.
Vicious and Julia are barely characters in the original. He was (as the name implies) is a cruel force of nature. She’s mute lost object of desire. Making them human reduces their essence and costs us time in revisiting the main characters.
To be fair, I might have given this series one more episode but after disliking the second I crawled the internet, found mixed removed and moved on. Why spend 8 hours on a mediocre echo when I could just revisit the original masterpiece again?
—November 2021
,
PPPS—World’s Most Extraordinary homes, Netflix, 2017-2018
My kids make little tent structures around the house so we thought they would enjoy checking out all these cool houses around the world.
Yup, it was pretty awesome!
Admittedly, when the revolution comes, these folks will be the first to fight the mob at their gates (unless their private security forces pushes the rabble towards easier targets).
Class envy aside, the rapport between the hosts was fun and the houses were luxurious. Unsurprisingly, we preferred the smaller (often architect owned) structures. Financial constraints made for tighter designs that just felt right.
The first season was sorted by geography (mountain, coast, etc.), while the second was by nation. Both were fun to watch and it’s a shame there aren’t any more seasons.
Before wandering into the world of pop up cards, here are five last 5WP’s…until we get back into poetry again!
,
3/24 Inktober 52 (2024), week 13
battling samurai with a spork
I tried a few lineweights with this Spork. The simple clean version one felt most spork-y.
,
3/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 11
japanese racoons shapeshift with nuts
A reference to the brilliant Studio Ghibli movie Pom Poko, a fun commentary on fighting our inevitable exploitation of nature. An early scene showing the development of the rural land around Tokyo is one of the sharpest satires I’ve seen on film.
I can’t remember for sure, but with the spacing so perfect, I suspect it was tweaked in the box. Nothing crazy, just a nudge here or there.
,
4/3 Inktober 52 (2024), week 8
astronaut riding a space donkey
An early experiment with inverting the background and playing with colors (using the Hue-Saturation filter). One day I should start experimenting in IRL with gauche on colored paper.
,
4/4 Inktober 52 (2024), week 9
always add a red balloon
The version on blank sheets was fine, but ruled binder paper felt like a relevant background for something that references a red-balloon (and as always a little extra noise can make a huge difference).
This was a reference to the architectural rendering trope adding a child with a red balloon. It gives a pop of color in the sky and a sense of playfulness to an otherwise staid image.
,
3/29 Inktober 52 (2025), week 13
a flock of folded rams
With this I detoured heavily into the world of pop-up cards. We bought Paul Jackson’sCut and Fold Techniques for Pop-Up Designs for the boy’s birthday, but I stole it as soon as I saw it. There would be a few more 5WP’s, but dealing with the third dimension and the constraints of the paper sucked all my creative energy for a while.
After summer, I returned to flat paper with the ruling pen but focused on a single word at a time. I’d like to return to poetry and pop-ups (and maybe both at the same time!), but struggling with a word itself is challenge enough for now.
,
As we head into this season of year end summaries, it’s interesting to think that this post covers the first half of 2025 with my “standard” 5WP format, practicing with a brushpen on ruled binder paper, and folded pop-up cards.
The second half of the year (assuming no surprises after I draft this in late October) was dominated by the ruling pen, a month off due to illness, embracing a focus on just one word at a time, and finally pushing out some old blog drafts.
I wonder what the new year will bring? All I know is that I don’t.
It’s gentle, but dang if your arms don’t get tired! And it’s easy to crank it up if you’re feeling it.
For me, it is cultural tourism, exer-dancing with a group from the exotic orient. I guess it’s not totally foreign since I’m of Chinese descent. The music is familiar, even though I don’t understand the words to the songs. While the megalopolis Asian urban setting is strange, the faces are not.
I would prefer to hang out at the local Kung Fu gym for my exercise. But that time that has passed. I don’t have time to slip out to practice with kids who are a just a few years older than my children.
Unfortunately, Tai Chi by myself gets old after a while, but partaking in the kitschy music and oddly familiar foreign group movement with the family is a nice change of pace for a day’s exercise.
—May 2021
,
PPS—Rubber Balloons
My daughter wanted helium balloons for her birthday, but we ordered a bag of regular balloons from Target.
She quickly got over her disappointment after my wife inflated a couple of them. Human air doesn’t float, but gravity makes for play. They spent a couple of hours batting them around the house. Up and down the stairs, over the dividing walls, in the bedrooms.
I hadn’t heard the boy laugh like this in a while. All over fifty cents of rubber.
It pained me to think of all the kids who can’t afford such a fleeting luxury. And I was reminded of a fellow father riding in the Vegas heat with a foil balloon for each of his kids.
—October 2021, soon after, they discovered the manual mattress pump. We had hours of fun inflating the balloons and letting them fly through the house.
.
PPPS—Pac-Man
Our daughter is growing up fast. She was reading a book with snippets from American History and asked about “Pac-Man”.
We watched YouTube videos and played Scratch versions of this classic. I also explained the concept of “arcades” where people had to pay coins to play computer games, and how the value of a quarter has been debased over forty years.
This weekend I pulled out a “Pac-Man Connect and Play” that plugs into the TV. Even though they didn’t enjoy Pac-Man, the boy loved a driving game where you left oil spills to spin out the pursuer. She preferred a flying game shooting coins out of the air.
After TV time was up, we played Pac-Man in person, using deflated balloons for the smaller buttons and inflated balloons for the ones that made Pac-Man eat the ghosts.
Then we took another YouTube break for the The Go! Team’s Ms. Pac-Man music video. That led to watching more music videos, TV advertising, and discussed how TV used to be appointment viewing.
Basically, we covered the last half century of American culture in a weekend through a yellow lens.
The gothicized italics was nice, but lacking. So added an extra layer.
,
10/26
INFERNO
As a longer word, I slammed it together, but it didn’t feel right.
So I went in the opposite direction with uncial, a wider script. Even though the aspect ratio makes the final one look small, it’s actually from a long 6×18 sheet.
,
10/27
puzzling
Another tricky word. I dropped the vowels (saving width on the page) and went with gothic, which emphasizes vertical strokes at the expense of legibility, hiding the missing letters.
,
10/28
Onion
I might have been able to get the top version to work with a compass and straightedge, but I wasn’t feeling the effort, even though camera is one of my favorite pieces from last year.
So back to ruling pen cursive! I have several versions of this that I’m all fond of. I picked this one because the nion felt very comfortable inside the O.
10/26/2024
,
10/29
SKELETAL
After a couple horizontal tries, I realized this word wants to go vertical. After inverting arctic and seeing how it could be pushed to make overlapping letters more legible, I realized that it was even more applicable here!
,
10/29
Lesson
I love the simple swooping capital cursive L.
It took a few tries to get right…turned out that I needed a guide line to keep esson lined up properly. I usually just wing it, but this was not one of those pieces.
2/5
,
10/30
VACANT
I’ve been wanting to work in versal and the V got me thinking of this script that draws out the letters. But Roman Capitals weren’t the right fit so I dove into my book on graffiti.
I just realized the relationship between graffiti and vacant lots. Maybe it was hiding in my subconscious, but at the time I just felt this script looked bubbly and I had run out of ideas.
For the second version, I borrowed the the girl’s Posca markers from last Christmas. I might buy another pack this year.
,
10/31
AWARd
I wrestled with this graph, until I switched to a lower case d.
It seemed fitting to close Inktober with another splatter, after a summer dominated by the ruling pen.
,
I always think that finishing a project will feel triumphant.
It never does. It’s always ends a whimper.
On to the next one.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Over the Moon, John Kahrs, Glen Keane, 2020
Good, mediocre, and bad.
The animation was nice, and it was great to see Asian faces. Unlike Mulan, the faces felt real and detailed. The family dinner scenes with the aunts and grandparents were as real as one could hope for in this idyllic country town. Yes, both moms were airbrushed, but the animators really put real soul into the ancillary characters.
Unfortunately, for all the good animation, the story was mediocre. This wasn’t a cheap knockoff, but it wasn’t a top-notch Disney imitation either. Classic Pixar would blatantly telegraph its game and still manage to tug your heart strings. Then again, Disney hasn’t been very good at imitating Disney for the past decade.
This movie has a similar structure to Coco, but it’s just clunky. They blatantly unalive Mom#1 in the first song. The songs and dance routines are inserted awkwardly. The other world seems gratuitously wacky. Along the way, they basically unalived suspension of disbelief.
Oh and, her dad did an awful job trying to blend the family. Dropping the news on the daughter right before a big family event. Geez.
—September 2021
,
PPS—The Painting, Jean-François Laguionie, 2011
This movie isn’t subtle as an allegory of God asleep at the wheel with the cold heartedness of mankind. But it’s still a good adventure, with love, exploration, justice, and ultimately freedom.
In spite of its straightforward messaging, it charms in a way that American animation fall flat. The early Pixar formula was great, but it’s predictable to the edge of dullness.
Even though this isn’t that avante garde, it’s fresh air in America. And the art is great with a bold painting style that contrasted against the CGI of the painter’s studio. Everything has been done, and this story’s tropes aren’t new. But the combination with the art direction make this a movie a fine 90 minutes.
—October 2021
,
PPPS—Tales of the Night, Michel Ocelot, 2011
This is a fun collection of short stories with the main characters in silhouette. In a world before Into the Spiderverse, anything that wasn’t the same 3D blob felt unique, and the flatness of the papercut characters made the backgrounds shine bright.
The movie raises the thorny question of cultural appropriation. I suspect it’s a hotter issue in American than France—referencing another culture might be more fraught in a pluralistic society. But over the past few years, I’ve decided that we should let storytellers set their stories in a diversity of fictions. They are taking a risk when they venture outside their known world, but that’s their problem. Why should I force them to stick to exactly what they’ve experienced?
And maybe the heightened sensitivity around cultural appropriation is a holdover from the mass-culture era. As media becomes diffuse and publication becomes democratized (even as the algorithms have become monopolized), it’s hard to feel strongly about any specific cultural product. If it fails, ignore it.
The culture is no longer mass. It’s a series of short stories connected only in our internal stage. Just like this movie.
