I’m way too busy to think of anything original to post, so I’ll be recycling some older posts from my Facebook page. Therefore, the three persons who read that can just ignore this rehashed nonsense…
People sometimes ask how I began my non-profit business, i.e., a career in art. Well, the non-profit part comes easy. One day I plan on writing a book entitled, “You, too, can run a business into the ground”, a.k.a., “I should’ve learned a trade like my pop kept telling me to do”. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. So, here I was, a little squirt of five. Someone (you’ll forgive me for not recalling exactly who, since it was, after all, quite some time ago) gave me a gift. It was a small box with, well, I don’t really remember what it was (a cornucopia of games, stickers and other ephemera), but it had, as a theme, Woody Woodpecker images and stuff. At the time, I liked the Woody. What did I know––like most kids, I had bad taste. So here I was with this Woody Woodpecker-themed box of something or other, and I suppose I got it into my head to trace a picture of the Woody and then lie to my pop, telling him I drew it––as in, freehand. I don’t know if it was the lying part or that my pop frowned on the practice of tracing, but I realized that if he asked me to repeat my prodigious feat of fine draftsmanship I’d be in a tough spot. My only recourse was to learn to draw the Woody for real, sans tracing––so that’s what I proceeded to do, which explains the crappy drawing you see here. This probably isn’t the exact drawing that began my life-long journey into poverty, but it was one of the first. Had I known then what I know now, I would have confessed to my pop how I had lied to him about drawing the Woody, and then, fearing I would take up a life of forgery, he would have beat out of me any further desire to put pencil to paper. At least, then, I could have gotten into a more reliable line of business, like hosting chicken-fights in my backyard.
Frank Grau Illustration 