Dean C. Graf's Uploads

Perched between silence and song, the blue jay waits—half mischief, half mystery.

Relaxed tension. Two parents at a national chess competition. Their kids squared off at the board, and so did they — one leaning back, shoe propped up, trying for calm; the other sitting stiff, watchful. The game played out in more ways than one.

The meal was my attempt to bring a little comfort into the rugged outdoors. The sketch was my reminder—to hold onto the moment, even when mosquitoes, ashes, and deflating air mattresses had other plans.

Sunday morning, more than a decade ago. Music, fellowship, and reports about what God was doing here and there. Some things are worth remembering. We learn from looking back— but we must live forward.

Imagine trading your soft bed for a deflating mattress. Imagine food cooked under ash, a fire that smokes more than it warms. Imagine waking at dawn with stiff muscles, yet finding yourself strangely alive. This sketch is not just about tents, cars, and campfires. It is about the in-between—where inconvenience and beauty wrestle, and something deeper sneaks in. Camping reminds me: comfort is overrated, but presence is priceless.

We are stitched together from fragments—torn edges, scraps, masks. The sketchbook shows only pieces, but grace sees the whole face.

The lake was busy with light, the grasses busy with wind, but the boat sat quiet against the shore. There is a gift in this tension: to be held still while everything moves, to be carried without effort, to find rest in the very heart of motion.

A simple ink sketch of a bird at rest. Sometimes the quiet moments—watching, pausing, waiting—are the deepest teachers. This drawing is part of my exploration of what I call the Quiet Practices—small ways of living from the inside out. If you’d like to see more of my reflections, I share them here: https://forming20.com/

Jury Duty, June 2013 Fifty of us sat in that room, each one staring at a phone or scribbling in a notebook, killing time. The lawyers asked their questions, picking us off one by one like a slow game of dodgeball. I wasn’t chosen, so I drew instead—earbuds, slouched shoulders, the hum of waiting caught in a few quick lines.

Super Nationals at the Gaylord—two rivers running through the lobby, actual boats gliding under glass ceilings, a nature center tucked between restaurants. Noise everywhere: kids, clocks, pawns and queens. Yet here, in the middle of it, a pause. A man leans back with the weight of waiting. A woman sits, at ease but still seeking. An empty chair remembers everyone who has rested there. In a place built to dazzle, what lingered with me was not the spectacle, but the silence. To draw is to honor the quiet within the clamor. thinking and seeing for better being — https://forming20.com/

Three trunks rising from one root, steady and separate yet belonging. The little bush at their base reminds me that life gathers in layers—quiet companions at the feet of giants. A simple contour line holds it all, the way a moment holds both strength and tenderness.

Sometimes wisdom comes in a joke, and sometimes laughter carries truth. Brian spoke like a sage, Mike answered like a friend, and together they held the room. We draw to remember. Not only the lines of faces, but the presence of goodness, the gift of voices that echo long after the chairs are empty.

So much noise presses in— screens, engines, endless chatter. But silence is not gone; it waits in a turned page, in breath, in light, in the hush between sounds.

A horizon of chalk—black sky heavy with silence, gold earth glowing with embered breath. Between them, a thin line of turquoise, the pause where one world ends and another begins. It is not sky, nor sea, nor sand alone. It is the threshold—a doorway, where silence teaches and light remembers. Stand here long enough, and you may hear it breathe. inking and seeing for better being — https://forming20.com/

Against the weight of a storm-dark sky, tender stems lean forward—some bending, some breaking, some still reaching. They hold their fire at the tips, waiting to bloom, waiting to burn, waiting to belong to light. Perhaps this is all of us: stretching through shadows, searching for the thin, golden line that divides earth from eternity.

This is no landscape you could ever stand in. No observational drawing, no safe horizon line. This chalk experiment is a dream unfolding in color: a golden field lit from within, a scarlet seam of fire at its edge, and a storm-heavy sky pressing down with ancient weight. It feels like a place between worlds—where the conscious and unconscious meet, where memory and imagination blur. Some might see a battlefield, others a meadow after rain, and still others a veil between life and death. That is the beauty: the painting does not tell you what it is; it invites you to confess what you see. Psychologists say we project ourselves onto images like these. So—what do you notice first? The light? The darkness? The burning red? Perhaps that is not about the drawing at all, but about you.

Sometimes the quickest drawings hold the deepest truths. During an after-sermon discussion about understanding the love of God, I found myself listening with one ear and drawing with the other. Frank, seated across the room, made a natural model—relaxed posture, thoughtful presence, and a face full of character. With a pen in hand, I traced his form in a quick contour line, following the folds of his shirt, the tilt of his jaw, the stillness of his hands resting in his lap. Contour drawing asks us to see more than just the surface—it demands patience and presence, a slowing down until the line itself feels like prayer. Frank became more than a subject; he was a reminder that the love of God is often revealed in ordinary moments and everyday people.

Two wicker chairs in the sun. One for the waiting, one for the hoped-for. The table between them holds its silence, its place set for bread or talk. I draw what is here— lines quick and unerasable— and what is not here, her presence, waits with me in the white of the page.

Imperfect Lines, Honest Presence This sketch is not perfect—and that’s exactly why it’s alive. The bold figure, the dissolving hat, the tilted chair: all of it feels unfinished, fleeting, caught in motion. It’s what the Japanese call wabi-sabi—finding beauty in the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete. But there’s something deeper here too. A quick sketch is not just what the eye records. It’s what the soul permits. To draw without fixing, without polishing, is to admit the world will not hold still for us. Life slips past. The lines break off. And yet, somehow, the essence remains. When you sketch this way, you are not the master of the moment—you are its guest. The pencil does not carve permanence; it pays attention. The act of drawing becomes an act of being present, of honoring what is already vanishing. So here’s a challenge: grab a pencil and sketch someone near you in sixty seconds. Do not erase. Do not perfect. Let the lines falter. When you finish, ask yourself: What truth did the imperfection reveal? Perhaps presence itself is the real art.

This portrait of Mr. Joshua Anderson—our resident Shakespeare whisperer—was drawn by student artist Covey Garrett as part of a school-wide tribute to our teachers. Students photographed, gridded, and drew 18x24” posters of their teachers, each paired with a favorite catchphrase. Mr. Anderson’s? A classic: “Hint, hint. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.” We think the Bard would approve. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely teachers..." (okay, we may have paraphrased a bit).

The tables were covered in white paper. Crayons, pastels, and smooth sticks waited quietly. Then came Lucy’s glittery purse—her 8-year-old hands had filled it with stones to pass along, one by one, to the strangers around the table. We traced them. Pushed them. Held them. Then we let the colors lead: -Red for emotion. -Yellow for curiosity. -Blue for memory. Each color came with music, with story, with space. At the Museum of Wisconsin Art, we made marks not for meaning but for presence. Thank you to Ann Marie and MOWA for the invitation and trust. And thank you to the participants—some new friends, some old students—for showing up and making lines that listened before they spoke.