Chaos!

This week I happened upon a very interesting drawing that Brother and I completed together many years ago when we were children (I think I was 12 and Travis was 10 when we made this drawing), and I’d like to share the insanity with you.

Choas! Yes, this muck sprang forth from the minds of children.

When we were kids, Travis and I would frequently fight like dogs, but occasionally we would combine our creativity and work together. I love this drawing because it represents some of the few peaceable moments Travis and I shared as youth. We would grab a sheet of drawing paper and our blue ink pens, and we would take turns drawing absurdities.

Something I find interesting about the drawing is that I can’t easily discern which parts Travis drew and which parts I drew. Our mark-making is very similar. The only way I can differentiate between our drawings is the subject matter. I liked drawing people and animals, and Brother liked drawing guns and other military apparatus. You can see my handy work with the buck toothed cat, man with giant tongue eating a lollipop, peace loving alien, people walking “like an Egyptian,” body builder, pelican drinking some kind of potion, as well as the long-armed yodeler. Travis’s creative genius can be seen in the gun crazy Abe Lincoln, the Gatling guns, atomic bomb explosions, helicopter, a tiny truck running over a man’s leg, and a man and woman riding a crashing airplane in what I can only assume is a loving tribute to Stanley Kubrick.

Travis liked to reimagine the Good Year blimp as the Bad Year blimp...and as the realy aful year blimp...and as the This Year Sucks blimp. — Travis liked to reimagine the Good Year blimp as the Bad Year blimp…and as the realy aful year blimp…and as the This Year Sucks blimp.

For some reason, our drawings always seemed to start with a shark tank and high divers.

Froggy went a courtin' and he did right, uh huh. — Froggy went a courtin’ and he did right, uh huh.

I’m not sure which of us drew the toads, but I think it’s hilarious that we made sure at least one of them was a horny toad (and not the actual “horny toad” aka the Texas Horned Lizard, but the “I’ve lusted in my heart!” horny toad.)

I also find it remarkable how terrible we both were at spelling. I misspelled “chaos” as “choas,” and Travis misspelled “really awful” as “realy aful.” Troothfully, my spelling is stihl dredfull.