Welcome to Lunch Bag Art Dad!

The last few years have been a fun, and unexpected journey. What began in 2018 as simply “leaving notes” in my kid’s lunch bags has evolved into “art” capturing the stories and events of our life. The bags cover birthdays, holidays, school activities, and the current events we’ve lived thru, and loved. It has been a joy to share them with friends, family and now you! The bags have found a home on Instagram , and now are finding new life the art as note cards, post cards, and posters. 

The lunch bags that bag once held a sandwich, chip, and a pop on its way to school are on display in the galleries here, and a limited number of those have been made into cards. I invite you to look around the gallery, and hope you enjoy the art and the stories the images tell. Maybe you’ll find a bag you’d like me to make into a card, or have an idea for a custom bag too! Let me know ☺ 

The Path to Lunch Bag Art Dad  (2017-2020)

When I was in elementary school, I brought a brown bag lunch to school everyday except Friday. Pizza day was not to be missed! The daily lunch was pretty standard; a bologna sandwich, a red apple, potato chips, and a pink milk ticket on the bottom of my bag. Every so often, I find a surprise PB&J sandwich or a Keebler Chocolate Chip Cookie, but sometimes I would find a note from my mother too. The notes were never elegant or big with words. They might simply say “have a nice day” or “don’t forget your key to the house” Regardless, the notes were a good find then, and they make for good nostalgia now. 

In 2017, when my kids were entering 4th and 1st grade, I stumbled upon one of the old notes from my mother that simply said “enjoy lunch”. It was enough to inspire me to begin leaving notes in the brown bag lunches that I was making daily. At first, I simply wrote a smiley face with a word or two on a 3M post-it-note. Soon “have a great day!” got replaced with a thought of the day or week. After school, I would ask them about the day, shamelessly fishing for a comment about the note. I quickly learned the notes, finding their way to the bottom of the bag next to the never-used napkins, never got read. So I started writing the notes on the bag!

The early art was not fancy, or very inspiring. In fact, it wasn’t really very artistic either. Half-broken crayons, and partially dry markers from the bin in the kitchen, were my tools. And the ideas of what to draw were somewhat uninspired; let’s just say there were a lot of smiley faces and gold stars on the first few bags. Luckily in the spring of 2018, the art began to change. The Edina Soccer Association ‘spring’ teams were assembled, and I was set to coach Morgan’s team: the Monarchs. While writing the parents the usual welcome letter, I thought a team logo would be fun. So, the next morning, which happened to be a Friday, I decided to grab the crayons and draw a butterfly logo for her lunch bag.

The response from the kids at the lunch tables were surprisingly positive. I decided to share the picture with a few parents from the team and felt encouraged to draw again. So, the next few weeks I began drawing and sharing the ‘Friday Fun Bag’.

After one Friday text, my friend Molly suggested I post the bag on Instagram. My reaction was something like “post it where? ‘Pinstagram’? What’s that?”  Don’t laugh, but its true. I was a neophyte to social media then, and I am still pretty clueless now. But hey, you gotta start somewhere and remember, no matter what you do in life, everything is brand new once.

After my first post, the lunch bags began to pile up. Each week brought a new theme, a new event, and new art to draw. And as the bags grew in numbers, the art began to grow along with my tools. My crayons made way for markers. The markers made way for colored pencils. Soon I was layering, blending and applying color with wax, oil, acrylic, and water-based tools. New tools meant new styles, shapes and images, and slowly crayon monsters were replaced with more detailed images. I even made characters for Becky, Macallen, Morgan and Me.

Then a funny thing happened at the end of the 2018-2019  school year. The enjoyment, habit and hobby of drawing on lunch bags throughout the year took on a life of its own. I had arbitrarily decided that the last-day-of-school photo of the kids getting off the bus wasn’t enough. Instead, I thought I should draw the last day of school in hopes of capturing what it meant to them; a transition to the next steps as students.  So I decided to draw a building-block motif for the lunch bags.

In creating these, I realized how much I loved doing this and I learned something else; I could “do more” than just draw fun lunch bags. It became clear the bags could help capture and tell the story of our lives.

But now I had a dilemma. Just as my new found inspiration arrived, the school year and the need for lunch bags ended. Yikes! What could I draw in the summer, let alone in the year ahead?  I wondered if Becky still welcome my silly art on her lunch bags for work? Or would Macallen, off to middle school and a year older, find the bags to be uncool or childish? What would Morgan feel about lunch bags in the 2019-2020 school year?

All I really knew is that I wanted to draw. So that summer, I did.

And to my surprise, the kids and Becky wanted me to keep drawing too. The result has been a random, and fun set of lunch bags that have made their way to lunchrooms, classrooms, meeting rooms, and even to rooms across the globe. 

I am grateful for this opportunity to share our life on lunch bags. I am humbled when people ask about them and still blush when referred to as ‘LunchBagArt – Dad’. This is and always has been about having fun, loving family and connecting with community. I hope it encourages us to “do more” with the time we have to share with each others.

Check out the galleries and my blog too!

And remember Rule #1: Have Fun!