Visiting the shores near their home, Sebastian would look out to see if he could catch a glimpse of Jack.
04.14.2021
This illustration makes me think of three things: the red clay in the ground where I grew up, the coast of Maine, and Meghan Follows as Anne of Green Gables, walking out on the White Sands of Prince Edward Island.
I had recently been driving back to visit my parents in southern Missouri. At one point, my brother and I were driving and we passed through an area that had just had some roadwork done. I could see the orangey-red soil that had been turned over, scattered with cream-colored rocks. Grass will grow over it before too long, but it piqued up some channel in my memory—the clay in the ground.
I had never been to the northeast part of the U.S. until I got married and my wife and I honeymooned at a cabin in Maine. The little towns along the coast seemed so charming and at the same time strange to me. I had never been around harbors or shipyards or lighthouses. My wife and I were both incredibly sick over the trip, but it was my honeymoon, so I mostly just remember all the wonderful things. My brother and sister-in-law moved to Maine a few years ago, and it has been awesome to have more cause to go visit that part of the country. We still engage in a fair amount of pipe-dreaming about cabins in Maine.
As I was growing up, my first movie crush was on Anne of Green Gables. I appreciated her one-off creative mind, her boldness, and her compassion for others. She was a fierce character with a determination to seek beauty, and I have a lot of appreciation for those qualities paired together. There are a couple of scenes where she stands in sandy grass overlooking the water. Couldn’t help but think of that too, as this drawing came about.
He saw night skies from distant islands, speckled with starlight over dark seas, and he missed his friend, Sebastian. He decided that it was time to return home to find him.
04.13.2021
A few weeks ago, just after the sun had set, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a beautiful pink bank of clouds hovering just over the skyline. Knowing that my almost four year-old daughter would love to see pink clouds, I called out for her to come outside with me to see them. As we walked out onto the deck, we saw a disc of pink rising, with clouds drifting across as it ascended. It was the moon. We watched it come up until it disappeared behind some thick, grey clouds. We then went back inside and got ready for bed. It was a pink bed, in a pink room, and as we got our toothbrushes, she told her mom about the pink clouds.
There were mornings when Jack awoke to the most beautiful sunrises. The light seemed to pour from the sky onto the water, surrounding him in an endless sea of colors.
04.12.2021
An experience of solitude for Jack in a vast sea becomes the backdrop for a moment of absolute awe as the color of the sky changes all around him. I feel gratitude, thinking of the range of moments in which I’ve witnessed something of the kind. Last night I backpacked up onto a ridge overlooking the Missouri River and made a solo camp for the night. As I sat by the fire and cooked dinner, the sunset was casting all kinds of beautiful color on the treed hills around me. Before I knew it, I was looking up at a clear, starry sky, and I heard a turkey gobble in the distance somewhere. I laughed, thinking of how these turkeys are out chuckling under these grand lights all the time. What a wonder.
Though the beauty of his trip filled his heart with much joy, Jack missed his friend, Sebastian. He began to write to him of the things he was seeing and of how he wished that Sebastian could be there to see them, too.
04.09.2021
Writing letters is not currently a big part of my life, but it has been in other seasons. During college and soon after, letters between friends held lots of encouragement and were an avenue for the processing of idealism and new experiences. As I first began getting to know the young woman who would become my wife, we wrote letters to one another over a summer before meeting up for the first time. In the times when writing and receiving letters seemed a natural mode for communication, I have received much good from them.
Jack is in the thick of living his adventures as well as in the thick of missing his friend. A perfect time for writing a letter.
The next days were full of the new wonder of the adventure. On some days it was calm and peaceful, and on others the sea was rough and waves tumbled the boat all about.
04.08.2021
Clouds. That’s what I like about this drawing—the clouds. Finding shapes in the clouds has always been a fun thing for me to do, and best describes the way I have drawn for most of my life. Calling it doodling, I’ve mostly tried to let the pencil run across the page without controlling it at first, looking for what identifiable shapes might show up that correspond with what I was feeling or thinking about at the time. In this instance, though, the clouds are just clouds. Working on these drawings for the blog is a very new way of drawing for me. I am making many more direct decisions about what I am trying to put on the paper, and at the same time trying to stay relaxed. I am also trying to keep myself from judging what shows up. It has already opened me up to being more gracious with myself and I’ve found that I really like it when clouds also get to just be clouds.