About
I began drawing a few years ago when I was the general manager of a Papa Johns. One of my many responsibilities at that job was to create the employee schedule every week. Once the schedule was printed there was always about 3/4 of a page of blank space on the first sheet so one day I decided to draw a few stick figures holding signs that had the calendar dates the schedule was good for. A few of my employees liked the idea of putting a picture on the schedule so every week I came up with something new.
At first all the pictures were done very rough and quick but as the months went on I started to really take it seriously. Inspired partially by the drawings of Sam Brown on his excellent site explodingdog my crescent moon headed stick figures were born in my sketch book. I never wanted to copy Sam’s drawings but I liked the expression his characters have and so every week on the work schedule I began to put more and more into getting a drawing together. On the rare occasions I was not around to make the employee schedule, my assistant manager would leave the schedule on my desk so that I could add a drawing to it. Nobody, not even the district manager considered my schedules done until I had put a drawing on the front cover.
When I resigned my position a few years ago I managed to get a hold of all those original drawings and I now keep them in a notebook. Since I no longer had a reason to make more drawings (deadlines are an artists friend, believe me) I stopped drawing on a regular basis. It was not until my 34th birthday that I began drawing again. I was going through some very difficult emotional issues and drawing became an escape and a release. Though I still have a difficult time motivating myself to draw often, hopefully by keeping this site I will once again have a good excuse.
I make no claims to greatness with my pictures, but I enjoy doing them and I hope you enjoy them as well. By the way the title Palo Altos is a take on the name one of my favorite Radiohead songs where the band ponders the friendly nature of the people living in a “city of the future”.
Thanks for reading,
Dan Harlow