Sign of the times

Toys’R’us, April 2018

Four years ago today, I tried watercolor for the first time since high school. I sketched the ToysRus across the road from a local Starbucks.

This week, I sat in the same space (now a Bibibop) and tried again, adding a little colored pencil to the ink and wash, later. The Starbucks has since moved next door, to a building with a drive-thru window; the ToysRus is going out of business.

I found the building lists to the left, on the page, like a ship going down, when I tried to level it in the photograph.

Toys’R’us, April 2014

Children of my parents’ generation read books and played with tools, fabric, and wooden toys; many children of mine settled for television and plastic imitations (“disposable” but not biodegradable). The next has gone virtual, ordering and streaming bits and bytes.

Footnote: I still remember my dismay when the car in the center of the lower drawing left, half way through my sketch of it.