I chose to draw Discount Shoe Repair because I already had a sketch prepared, so I knew I could do it. But I was curious. How is Discount Shoe Repair doing? Does Ralph get enough business?

The sketch I had prepared was from a few years ago. It had elves making shoes, so I made one more sketch of Ralph’s Discount Shoe Repair. This one was “filled with stuff” because it was a familiar style for me. And then I made another one that featured Ralph in his shop. His shop was filled with stuff in real life! I brought them both to Ralph to let me know which one he liked better. He chose the second one, with him as the central figure.

I did get my answer to the question “Is there enough business?” Sadly, no there isn’t. According to Ralph, we live in a throwaway society, and rather than repair a broken item, we prefer to just dispose of it and buy new.

I like to draw pictures where there's all kinds of stuff all over the page, all the time, everywhere, and no room for words. I just like it that way, so I knew this project would be a challenge because I'd have to leave a blank space for the haiku.

I decided I'd leave a big space in the center, and draw Syracuse in the distance, clouds up in the sky, apple trees and grape vines off to the sides. So far I'm bored to death with my whole idea, so I added a little girl sniffing flowers near the bottom of the blank space.

Then I tried to fit the words into the blank space and they didn't fit! Lucky for me there was room up in the sky because I didn't want to draw the whole thing over again.