As I wrote previously, I essentially abandoned art (with the exception of doodles in margins) in the early 2000’s. My work schedule and personal life became busier: I’ve been teaching since 2003, and married since 2004. In 2006, we had our daughter, and any parent will tell you how scarce free time becomes at that point.

There were a few bits and pieces after that, including an illustration I did for the school’s yearbook (Zombified students!), but what little free time I had generally went to things like video games and endless TV reruns.

Then came 2014.

In 2014, my daughter was in the 3rd grade, and not always a fan of school. Out of a desire to make the middle of her day a little brighter (and no doubt inspired by the occasional Buzzfeed article on a similar thing), I started drawing little Star Wars-themed pictures on the plastic bags I used to pack her sandwiches. (We love Star Wars in my house.)

Here are the first few:

Lydia was in the midst of the Origami Yoda series at this point.

There was a time when my kid and I shouted “you rebel scum!’ at each other fairly regularly. I miss that.

Puns! Gotta love them (in order to put up with me, anyway)!

These started out simply, but I quickly realized that I could treat each bag as a single-panel comic, like The Far Side, and things got a lot more elaborate. I went from spending maybe five minutes on a bag to spending up to around half an hour in the morning.

If you don’t get this, your childhood largely went to waste.

(In case you’re ever looking for a ridiculously unforgiving medium in which to do art, I suggest Sharpie on Ziplock.)

It was these bags, and the positive feedback when I started an Instagram account to post them (@snead_doodles), that got me back into the habit of drawing regularly. And it was a fun game, trying to think of ways to reference both what was happening in my daughter’s life that day, and to do it through the lens of Star Wars.

I don’t have an exact count of these anymore, but I’d guess I’ve done a couple hundred of them.

I covered Halloween:

Christmas:

Vader’s dad jokes were among the most dangerous in the galaxy.

Test days:

When you have to finish the bag, make the sandwich, and get out the door, your brain can come up with some weird stuff.

Picture day:

Our new puppy, Spoon:

And sometimes I incorporate other characters my daughter loves:

Disney, if you’re reading this: my offer to write and draw “Deadpool vs. Star Wars” still stands. Call me.

I can’t think of anything to say for this one, but can we take a minute to appreciate the joke about Vader MASKing his feelings? Come on. That was solid.

The pace of these things has slowed down some; it turns out the food in middle school is much better than in elementary, so she doesn’t pack lunch quite as often. I also wonder if she won’t eventually decide that little cartoons from dad are kind of embarrassing.

Even if that happens, I often tell her that it’s her bags that gave me the practice to get back to art, and to get better at it. No #sandwichbagart, no www.haroldcomic.com. I think she’s pretty proud of that.

Anyway, that’s how I came back to art after far too long away from it. While I wish I hadn’t lost so much time, it makes me happy that my kid was part of what brought me back.

If you want to see more sandwich bags, as well as glimpses of future Harold pages and other art, follow me on Instagram at @snead_doodles .

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Next week, I’ll walk through the process I use to get from idea to finished page. I hope you’ll join me!

The Harold Blog

#sandwichbagart : Returning to Art