I had a lot of fun with a pencil for graphing a graffiti style versal. The pencil lets me fly around with light lines to find the right shapes, but I can still erase or crank up the density and line weights to sculpt the shape to my liking.
Either way, it’s less stressful than ink…and with my architecture sketching background, I willing to live with the unfinished look.
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My father-in-law lost his battle with pancreatic cancer last week. He fought for three seasons until finding his rest in the early morning.
That day, I stayed at home with the kids while my wife and her mom made arrangements. They played on their computers while I listened to podcasts while working on a jigsaw puzzle that had been sprawled across the playroom mat for a month.
When she came home, we took a walk around the neighborhood school. The boy then played with our neighbors. They wanted to stroll around the school too.
Last month, we watched the girl play Door #2 at the middle school. A small bit, accentuated with clearing table of the mad tea party. Like all the parents in the theater, my heart was on that stage for three nights.
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Jabberwocky
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll
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Almost thirty years ago, I bought this bottle of ink by Rotring. It traveled around across the country, architecting in Berkeley, Houston, and Vegas. This poem finally finished it off.
After I cleaned the bottle, the boy refilled it with a random ink wash for his “science” experiment.
Along with my current gothic scripty kick and the standby pointed brush cursive, this chunky wide brush has been consistently satisfying, especially when pushed to the extreme.
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He taped a red jar cap to the wall and pressed the button each time he headed out to school.
The boy tripped and bumped his head over the baby-gate. Installed three years ago, when he was a toddler.
Stayed to keep him sleepwalking down. Now it’s just in the way.
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.
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
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
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.
This year roughly followed the seasons, with one big break.
Winter started with a monthly focus on new scripts—finally bearing down on Italics, Gothic, Copperplate, and Roman Capitals.
We bought the boy Paul Jackson’s Cut and Fold Techniques for Pop-Up Designs which I promptly commandeered. It completely changed Spring as I cut and folded through all the designs in his book.
Pop-ups are fun, but I hate photographing them, so I returned to the ruling pen in Summer, focusing on cursive. Splatters are addictive!
Then a big break September with a week in the hospital. Not fun, but I’m grateful for the wonders of modern medicine.
Autumn started with my recuperation through Inktober and then walking through the NATO alphabet. It officially became a challenge season when I dived into Callivember with the kids’ watercolor sets.
The last weeks of this year are closing out in two directions.
I’ve graduated from Crayola watercolor pans to a tube set of gouaches. OMG, I love opacity! Gouache works great on colored construction paper, and I’m now painting my hand, which pairs nicely with old hand sketches for the NATO alphabet series.
With free release of Affinity, I also started making zines. We even purchased a color printer now that I discovered the existence and efficiency of tank printers. So now I need to publish some zines to justify this purchase!
And for 2026? The good news is that I finally got traction on the 2024+2025 theme of “Catching Up”, plowing through my old blog drafts. I’m only halfway through those drafts and never got around to dormant home projects, but it’s time to move on.
“Curation” is my word for 2026. Life is packed full of interesting things and I need to make some hard cuts—”if it’s not exciting or veggies, then NO!” Even more than the past few months, I hope to embrace the cult of done (or trashed).
Aside from my “exciting” calligraphy, blog, and zine projects, I got the usual list of “veggies” that everybody else has with the new year—a never-ending list of home projects, controlling my diet (nutritional and digital), and creating a regular exercise routine.
So yeah, goodbye to 2025 and here’s to a fresh start in a couple of days, just like every morning!
