The Clayton Brothers have a new book coming out with a bunch of their newer and some older stuff. Site pops up into it’s own frame (can’t stand that) but the illustrations are good.
A few years ago I took an illustration class taught by the brothers, and had a great time. Now that I have a garage, I’m getting the serious itch to start illustrating again. Once the skills are exercised a bit more, I think we’ll start painting bits and pieces in Leah’s room.
I remember when I first started dating Carrie she showed me the closet of her room where she grew up, and the walls were covered with illustrations that no one knew about. It was like finding cave paintings, or some other mysterious artefact, forgotten and lost.
The Clayton brothers talked about how when they were kids, their dad would encourage them to paint and draw on anything, including the walls. It’s something that I’m pretty willing to encourage myself (within reason of course, I’m not sure what guests would think if they saw my illustrations painted on the living room walls). When it comes to pursuing creative activity, I’m not going to put up too many boundaries for my kids. I love the Royal Tennebaums movie, and one reason is that I think I’m drawn to the kind of encouragement of talents that the family in the movie displayed. Painting on the walls, starting up businesses, plenty of books, paintings, stuffed boars, tents in the house. It’s what I want my home to be like. No pursuit is discouraged.