It is an exciting and rare occasion in our house when my husband breaks out a mechanical pencil and starts to draw. He has always made tiny, meticulous renderings of long parades of vehicles, in recent years usually under the guise of an explanation or description of something for our daughter. I’ve always been baffled at how he can get the general abstract shape of a truck or a helicopter correct without looking at one. Well! Recently he stumbled upon this 1972 book “Make a World” by Ed Emberly and excitedly explained that he had obsessed over it as a child.
Inside are a zillion everyday objects broken down with charming simplicity and humor…


The tiny scale and blocky, basic instructional nature of these drawings appeals perfectly to Greg, who also adores models and Lego kits. So now, he has Sonja imagine a scenario for him to draw and he makes it come to life via the templates in this book. Below, “Two Dragons Getting Married.”

My sister Jill wondered how an animal drawn via this method would translate to full-page size…

Ha! I think it holds up!