Today’s Sketchdump is an interesting one I think. Last week my youngest son came down with a cold and he was having a hard time sleeping. I laid down in his bed and read some stories to him and then he asked me to make one up. I started with the classic Dad play of using your kid in the story. “Once upon a time there was a little boy named Noah.” I ended up telling a story about a little boy who lived in a lighthouse on a tiny island in the middle of a great big ocean. One foggy day he saw a ship on the horizon and realized his light was turned off. So he had to run up the stairs all the way to the top of the lighthouse to turn the light back on. He kept getting distracted though as it turns out his light house is full of rooms. They started out pretty normal, he stopped at the kitchen first and got himself a sandwich, then the bedroom and the laundry room and he had to stop in each room and do something. There was a video game room where he stopped to play Mario, and a homework room (which he actually skipped right over since he was obviously in such a big hurry) and they got more ridiculous as he climbed. The last room before the top was an “Ice Cream” room which I honestly have never seen in a lighthouse, but it was a crowd pleaser. Anyway, he finally got to the top and turned on the light just in time for the pirate ship to see it and avoid crashing into his little island. It was a goofy story I cooked up on the spot, but then he asked to hear it again the next night.
I decided to spend some time in my sketchbook thinking about what Noah’s Lighthouse would look like as an actual children’s book.
I had a lot of fun doing these and I think I'll invest a bit more time in it. Maybe I could actually make it into a book? I don't know we'll see.
In case you missed it over the weekend, I made a big post about Club PA. If you signed up back when it started it's probably time to renew. If you don't know about it yet, just check out the Club PA site for all the details.
-Gabe out
