Grandpa

My grandpa is a very special man.

I believe a lot of my creativity and love for drawing comes from the genes I inherited from my grandpa. From early memories, I remember my grandpa would spend countless hours tinkering away at his work bench in the basement of his house. He would always equip me with a full stock of chalk. I would make litte drawings on the chalkboard adjacent to his work bench. For hours, I would draw bugs, trees, and ice cream cones. I would then dutifully label underneath each object what it was. Richard Scarry style. It wasn't until recently did I learn that my grandpa was an engineer in his younger years. I could comiserate about my late nights drawing with many of his own experiences.

He recently told me of a story when he was spending countless hours on a drawing for a client when he was a young man. His boss advised him, "Loron, it would be wise to move that bottle of ink to someplace else on your desk." Fully involved his work, my grandpa shrugged off the suggestion and continued working. During the early morning he was finishing putting the final details on the large drawing. And what do you know, he knocked the bottle of ink all over his drawing.

"So then, what did you do grandpa?" I asked.

My grandpa raised his hands in the air with the only answer, "I did it again."

So, these days, I try to keep his creativity, spirit, and perserverance in me when I draw. This helps me feel a little bit closer to him when I feel frustrated. I mean, he did have to redo an entire drawing after doing an all-nighter.