Impress your kids: Draw their favorite nutty buddy

Jason Shults has been drawing Brutus Buckeye in one way or another for more than a decade. His watercolor depiction of the Ohio State mascot hangs in Longaberger Alumni House, and in years past you’ve been able to custom-build a Shults-created Brutus avatar online. Shults also raised three daughters, so he knows very well that parents need a deck of 5-minute activities with them at all times, especially now that we are all together, seemingly all of the time.

When we asked him to create a Mo Willems-inspired doodle lesson, he had to think through the “how” of drawing Brutus. When something has become second nature, it can be hard to break it down into a process. Shults did not only that, but he shared some of his artistic philosophy along the way. Chief among his tenets: “You need to find value in what you’re making,” he says. “Don’t compare yourself to ‘their’ work until you’ve made your own thing. It’s more the hunt than it is the treasure.”