Still, in the lower grades I was always getting in trouble because I couldn’t help myself. If I saw a picture my gut told me I had to draw, I used the grid-trick to copy it. Using a ruler I’d first make a precise pencil grid over the image, then transpose what I saw within each mini-square (or rectangle) onto a much larger grid I made, using the same proportions, onto a clean sheet of paper where the original image suddenly—came to life, miraculously! My frustrated parents, never having much extra cash, had to replace several expensive volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica “B” for Birds and “H” for Horses when their drawing-fool of a daughter was finally caught tracing over the books’ pages at school.

Official botanical illustration of Coca erythroxylum, the plant chewed by the los InKa, historically, and presently. Drawn by yours truly, Lord Flea: teZa Lord (then named Lynda Bates)