A week ago, an 8 year old named Mia came in for a slime workshop and once finished with the slime, we all started making some prints. Mia created a few drawings of flowers, scratched them into her foam plates and we started making prints - along with ghost prints. I had these long sheets of paper and tried to convince the kids to create a patterned collage. I also had put out these rainbow lino-cut pieces I had carved a while back. Mia spent 1 full hour on this particular print and I just love it so much! When I started this workshop, I had hoped prints like this would hap ..read more

About Forty years ago, my family would go on road trips to Syracuse, NY to visit our cousins. Actually about 40 miles north of Syracuse, right next to Lake Ontario. Also about 40 years ago, my family got our first and only dog, which we had for only about 30 days. Her name was Sandy - a cocker spaniel that ended up going back to the farm because my father and I were having allergy attacks. We didn’t go on many road trips when I was a boy, but the ones to Syracuse were some of the best. Today, my wife, two boys and I just went on our very first road trip in a long time - and I am writing t ..read more

Printmaking requires lots of cool tools that kids love using. We have incorporated some of these tools into drawing & painting, and have even invented and built a few of our own. We’re going to try and focus on building more - who knows - maybe we’ll even put some into production and sell them. Oh, and speaking of cool tools - here are the three things I am grateful for today: • SILENT & QUIET BEGINNINGS • POTATO PEELERS • DRILL BITS     REX ZENA POTATO PEELER - pretty cool I was peeling potatoes the other day and realized that the peeler is a pretty simple t ..read more

Today, as I do every morning, I came up with three things to be grateful for. Today, I am grateful for: • LIP BALM • BRUSSELS SPROUTS • REMEMBERING HOW MUCH FUN IT WAS TO CLIMB A FENCE Yesterday, a very nice couple came into the shop and we got to talking about raising boys with lots of energy. They showed me a pic of a rock climbing wall they built, in their apartment, for their son to climb. I told Lochlan about it - he asked me to build one for him in the shop - I said - “just go to the park and climb a fence”. He looked at me like I was nuts. I wondered: Do kids  ..read more

There is something about the repetitive nature of drawing porcupines that relaxes me. Been doing it for years. Get a few different colored fine line markers, sketch out the porcupine’s body and then continually scribe out hundreds of thin lines, in varying colors - it’s incredibly calming and led me to the creation of Copper, our sweet ‘paper’ porcupine. A few years ago, I sketched her out on a large piece of watercolor paper, screwed it to a sheet of masonite - then mounted to my old drafting table. Named her Copper because of the pink circles in the background - which I s ..read more

For the past year and a half, when I wake up in the morning, I have been coming up with three things to be grateful for, three random things - mundane/silly things like ping pong balls, electric outlets and rhinos (not that I have a rhino, I’m just grateful they exist). Starting your day with gratitude is supposed to trigger your mind into having a more positive approach to the day. It was working, then the pandemic hit, but I kept it going - driving my kids crazy, yet on mornings when I did not announce it out loud -they’d ask me what I picked for the day.  On the morning ..read more

Bye bye Summer, hope you guys all had a terrific summer one and while I’m sad to pack up the bathing suits, sunscreen, flip-flops and daily hysteria, I am very much ready for the structure of the school year. We dropped them off yesterday and I literally skipped home to ‘Walking on Sunshine’. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but adults need time away from kids more than just once in a while. It needs to be structured and it needs to be a regular occurrence. The last few weeks of this summer vacation really helped me understand this concept. So, for the fall, I am setting up a few work ..read more

I had a very specific sales-driven post set up for this week, but the other day, on drive home from the beach, U2's “Every Breaking Wave” came on. Lochlan (my little musician) asks me to turn it up - he likes the song and as luck would have it, he harps on one particular line: And every shipwrecked soul knows what it isTo live without intimacy “Daddy, what is intimacy?” This question led to a 40 minute conversation in traffic and we’re still talking about it today. I have already started some of the birds & bees conversations with Luke (11) but never thought about explaining intimacy ..read more

We’ve been working on this collaborative piece with kids for about 8 months now and it has changed a lot. Below are a few shots of how it looked when I should have taken it off the wall. I loved the way this looked, but when kids are involved and we allow them to continually work on a piece, it usually doesn't stay a certain way for very long. I am glad I took these pics when i did. We’ll see how it looks when we finally decide to take it down ..read more

When Luke was an infant, I thought it was cute that he’d sit in front of my laptop and watch YouTube videos of kids playing with trains or legos. He’s now 11 watching YouTube videos of kids playing video games. Getting them to limit their use is an uphill battle and it’s exhausting. I’ve spent 20 years building several creative businesses with minimal-to-moderate success, it’s been an uphill battle. For the last few years, I've spent hours per day on Instagram & Facebook trying to grow Little Pulp - and while I value the connections made - the reality - it’s just more quiet time in front ..read more