“Humans are wealthy in proportion to the things they can do without.”
Henry David Thoreau
Day 27
“The soul without imagination is an observatory without a telescope.”
Henry Ward Beecher
Day 28
“In order to love who you are you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.”
Andréa Dykstra
Drawn 9/6/2017
Day 29
Waiting at SFO
I drew this as I was waiting at the San Francisco airport to come back to Dallas. It was fun because a young girl sitting next to me was watching, mesmerized, the whole time. I asked her if I should show it to the woman and she said yes because it was really good. I think she liked it more than the woman did. I painted it with Copic markers after I got home, finishing it this morning.
Day 30
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but all very lively debate within that spectrum.”
I went to prison last week. In particular San Quentin Prison. My daughter Chelsea is a leader in a non-profit called ‘Alive Inside’ that helps the incarcerated with issues of grief, hope and loss. It was Mental Health Awareness week and her team and she played music out in the prison yard along with a number musicians from among the prisoners while hundreds listened or did their outdoor activities. It was a pretty astonishing and eye opening day for me. So many came up to me expressing their appreciation for Chelsea, her music and her ability to listen and help process their emotions when they are doing smaller, more intimate group activities. It was something listening to an entire prison yard full of tough men sing an enthusiastic happy birthday to my daughter. No cameras were allowed but my sketchbook was so I spent time drawing what I saw. Do I have to say how proud I am of her? Yes, I do. I am a very proud papa.
The Band in San Quentin Yard
Peer Support/Hearing Impaired
Chelsea Singing in San Quentin Yard 1
Chelsea Singing in San Quentin Yard 2
One interesting note about San Quentin. There is no Saint Quentin. What there was was an indigenous Coast Miwok warrior named Quentin who lived in that area. He was captured after a fight with the Mexican military in the 1820s and his people named the area after him. When American settlers came later they mistakenly assumed any named place in California had to be named after a saint, as so many were, and named the land San Quentin.
I also drew 3 more drawings during my trip, 2 in airports and one in a club, Vita Brevis, that Chelsea belongs to.
Zen proverb (a variation was made popular by Wayne Dyer – “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” )
Drawn 9/12/2025
Day 2
“Things average out: if you think too much of yourself, others won’t.” – Folk aphorism I looked the quote up just now to get the right source and this is what they told me. hahaha, I’m famous!
Day 3
“The only benefit you get from judging others is a brief distraction from your own life.” Drawn today, 9/3/2026
Anonymous
Day 4
“Tact consists in knowing how far to go in going to far.”
quote by French artist, poet, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau
Day 5
In DFW on the way to North Carolina She couldn’t get the water bottle open so I did it for her then I drew her.
Drawn 9/12/2011
Day 6
“Censorship, like charity, should begin at home. But unlike charity, it should end there.”
Drawn 9/19/2012
Day 7
“What does labor want? More schools, less jails; More books, less guns; More learning, less vice; More Justice, less revenge; In fact, more opportunities to cultivate our better nature.”
I have been crazy busy with an overnight trip to Houston that turned into 4 days then 3 days of 2 of our grandsons staying with us. As a result I started posting from my ipad, where I don’t have any of my napkins stored, but I do have a ton of digital drawings I’ve done over the years. So digital drawings it’s been for the past week or two.
‘Mother and Child’‘The Singer’‘Oh oh’‘Sunbather on Stretchmark Beach’‘The Big Kick’‘The Big Run’
“If there is anything we wish to change in a child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could be better changed in ourselves.”
Drawn 7/8/2011
Day 9
“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.”
Drawn 7/7/2011
Day 10
“When you are finished changing, you are finished.”
Drawn 7/6/2011
Day 11
“The only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions.”
drawn 7/5/2011
Day 12
“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
Drawn 7/11/2015
Day 13
“The Curious Paradox: When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.” – Thomas Jefferson Drawn 6/4/2009
Day 2
“What people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise.”
Drawn 7/2/2015
Day 3
“As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.” – George Washington.
Drawn 7/4/2014
Day 4th of July
“What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.”
Drawn 7/4/2010
Day 5
“Unless you change direction, you will get where you are headed.”
Drawn 7/25/2011
Day 6
“Beauty is a brief gasp between one cliche and another.”
Drawn 7/12/2017
Day 7
“She poured coffee as if she was from Oshkosh but she poured it in Texas.”
“The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”
Drawn on 6/9/2009
Day 29
“She occasionally stumbled over the truth but hastily picked herself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.” Quote by Winston Churchill, commenting on a political opponent who had insulted him earlier.
“If you feel indispensable, put your finger in a glass of water, withdraw it, and note the hole you have left.”
Drawn 5/8/2012
Day 24
“It may take forever to win men’s minds by persuasion, but that’s quicker than you can do it by force.”
Drawn 5/18/2012
Day 25
“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.”
Drawn on Memorial Day, 5/30/2011
Day 26
“Just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
Drawn 5/24/2013
Day 27
‘Writing Lesson Number 1: Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.”
Drawn 5/24/2011
Day 28
“There is nothing like a persuasive speedh to fuddle the mental apparatus, upset the convictions, and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the delusions of oratory.”
Drawn 5/17/2012
Day 29
“Taking Joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.”
Drawn 5/24/2013
Day 30
“Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance.”
Drawn 5/13/2014
Day 31
“If you have a radical idea, be conservative in how you carry it out.”
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”
Drawn 5/6/2016
Day 13
“Mothers are the gardeners of the human race.”
Drawn Mother’s Day 2016
Day 14
“It is a poor family that hath neither a whore nor a thief in it.”
Day 15
“It is hard to tell what brings happiness: poverty and wealth have both failed.” (I vote for art)
Drawn 5/18/2011
Day 16
“At twenty we worry about what others think of us; At forty we don’t care what others think of us; At sixty we realize they haven’t been thinking about us at all.”
Drawn 5/6/2011
Day 17
“You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking.”
Drawn 5/3/2017
Day 18
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.”
The first several days of this week were taken up with reintroducing myself to a new audience, explaining how I became the Napkin Dad. You can read that story at ‘Napkin Beginnings’ at the top menu.
Day 5
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing but the making of something after finding it.”
Drawn 5/17/2016
Day 6
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists primarily of dealings with men.”
Drawn 5/23/2016
Day 7
“The bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies – probably because they are generally the same people!”
Drawn 5/19/2011
Day 8
“Mothers are the gardeners of the human race.”
Day 9
“If the world were perfect it wouldn’t be.”
Day 10
“If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong.”
Day 11
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
“I think it’s about time we vote for people with breasts. After all, we’ve been voting for boobs long enough.”
Drawn 4/16/2012
Day 2
“Do not mistake temptation for opportunity.”
This has been me too many times in my life. I rationalized it as an opportunity when it was just me being drawn to what I desired. Of course, both things can be true at the same time but even if it is an opportunity you might miss it if you are focused on the short term fulfillment of your desire. The long game is the hardest game to play.
Drawn 4/14/2016
Day 3
“If you want to kill a good idea, get a committee working on it.
Drawn 4/28/2016
Day 4
“Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
Drawn 4/12/2011
Day 5
“Don’t let imaginary dangers inflict real wounds.”
Drawn 4/14/2015
Day 6
“Depression is the inability to construct a future.”
Drawn 4/27/2009
Day 7
“You can be misunderstood once. After that, you are just communicating poorly.”
