Bagging it
Jack takes a lunch box to school but when he goes to summer day camp, his carrot sticks, cookie and sandwiches (unvaryingly: one salami, one PB&J), travel along in a brown paper bag. At one point, maybe it was last summer or the summer before, Patti asked me to write his name on the bag. Soon this became a ritual and each morning after breakfast I would do more and more elaborate calligraphy to identify his bag.
Then I started making up panels from super hero comics and printing them on the bag with my ink jet. This year I alternate between dip pen hieroglyphics and watercolors and gouache (which look great on the biscuit brown paper).
When I first came to America at thirteen, I got my first lunch box. I think I picked it out myself, a Scooby Doo model. It wasn't long before my classmates started to snicker and then openly deride me for my cluelessness.
Before long, I'd gotten the message and began to brown bag it. No name or watercolors.
A record of my exploration into all aspects of drawing, illustrated journaling, creativity, and the inspiring aspects of art. By the author of "Everyday Matters," "The Creative License", and "An Illustrated Life" and other books.
Comments
One of my daughter's favorite memories is having the coolest lunch bags in her class -- every morning our ritual was "what shall I draw for you today?"
Posted by: Laurie | July 20, 2004 11:13 PM
Lucky Jack! The art-lunchbags might become collector's items, and maybe the kids will start trading them!
Posted by: Marja-Leena | July 21, 2004 12:39 AM
Ohhhhhhh---my dad used to do this for me every morning...and when I got older, instead of the drawings on the front, he'd put messages inside. I hadn't thought about this for awhile! I miss him lots, but I'm glad I have the memories...thank you for reminding me...!
Posted by: tania | July 21, 2004 01:42 AM
I did that on my kids' lunches, too - it was blankety-blank some years ago, before rubber stamping was "in." I'd use various art stamps I'd found and create scenes or stories on the bags. They liked it when they were young. I stopped before it got embarrassing. You know how that is.
Posted by: Karen Winters | July 21, 2004 02:57 AM
oh this makes me want to go out and buy brown paper lunch bags and start drawing on them!
Posted by: becky | July 21, 2004 03:20 AM
My dad used to write a limerick every morning and stick it in my lunchbag. Sometimes they had to do with stuff going on at school, sometimes friends I had and sometimes just nonsense. He must have written over 500 in the couple of years that he did it. He never repeated a single one. It was so great every day to find out what new funny thing my dad had been upto the night before.
I'm glad you started a tradition in your own magnificent style :)
Posted by: Sunny | July 21, 2004 07:28 AM
Sometimes, kids can be so cruel...
Posted by: Lu | July 21, 2004 08:47 AM
My husband also draws characters on our sons' lunchbags. Usually it is some version of Beowulf. (!)
Posted by: Stephanie | July 21, 2004 11:38 AM
I love that idea. Jack must be the most popular kid in his school.
Posted by: penelope | July 21, 2004 01:05 PM
Maybe this is an idea for a new productline - Danny Gregory Illustrated Lunchbags. It might be a great suppliment to the book royalties in your distant old age :-)
Posted by: Robyn Smith | July 21, 2004 06:27 PM
My Mom used to draw little stick people or write our names really funny...I still remember that and love that she did that small thing every day....
Posted by: stef | July 21, 2004 06:54 PM
I think this is why I like to paint on sandpaper. The color is great with gouache, the texture is really appealing and the color looks great.
Posted by: Melly | July 21, 2004 07:16 PM
First lunch box memory:
Red, plastic with dancing girls swinging their long black hair and high black boots...mini skirts, plus it said, "A GO-GO" all over it....came with a matching thermos too, I think...cool...so cool for a silent-shy second grader hiding behind her bangs...
Posted by: fern | July 25, 2004 08:14 PM
Danny-I too had a similar experience- when I first came to this country at 9 years old and my parents got me a lunch box. Then going to school and slowly realizing they were not "cool" and to brown bag it instead...
Thats one cool brown bag lunch for Jack!
Posted by: Jannie | July 28, 2004 11:50 AM