May 1, 2008, that's the date stamp on the first bag I uploaded to my Flickr feed and I can't not use this cliche: it doesn't seem like 14 years ago.

Doing a quick drawing on my kids' sandwich bags began after I tried and failed to draw directly on the bread with food coloring. It took too long and was messy. I saw a Sharpie marker in the kitchen and thought that may work on the sandwich bag.

The first bag uploaded to Flickr was a simple chicken with a Sharpie marker. I had done a few bags before this one and those were tossed in the trash at school. I knew I wanted to keep some kind of a visual record of these drawings/ideas since I considered them to be like a page in a sketchbook. This was in the early days of digital photography and cellphones being easy to use and affordable. All I had was a digital camera, a computer, flip-phone and a Flickr account.

Flickr was my choice to store all my sandwich bag art images. I knew about Flickr through my job as a newspaper designer. There were times when I needed a photo for a news story, found what I needed on Flickr, and contacted the photographer.  I also understood the reason for descriptions, tags, and other metadata as it helps when someone is searching using specific words.

(Pictured above is the first sandwich bag art uploaded to my Flickr feed. A line art drawing of a chicken on a nest with a Sharpie marker above the sandwich)