{"id":27928,"date":"2026-05-14T07:34:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=27928"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:41:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:41:44","slug":"ferdinand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2026\/05\/14\/ferdinand\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ferdinand,\u2019 Celebrated Picture Book About Bull Who Prefers Flowers To Fighting, Turns 90"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I first encountered the celebrated 1936 picture book \u201cThe Story of Ferdinand\u201d not as a child, but as a young cartoonist trying to figure out how to draw with a brush dipped in ink. You couldn\u2019t press down on the long-bristled brush the way you could on a pen or pencil, the way I was used to, you had to hold it floating above the page. But in exchange the brush could give you a wondrously flowing thick and thin and thick line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I was relearning how to draw, and I was looking for models of how to do it right. Looking in old books about illustration. Combing through library shelves. And found my way to \u201cFerdinand,\u201d written by Munro Leaf and filled with dazzling pen, brush and ink drawings by Robert Lawson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coinciding with the 90th anniversary of the book\u2019s publication this September, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst recently debuted the exhibition “Under the Cork Tree: The Story of Ferdinand.,\u201d<\/a> on view from May 9 to Nov. 8, 2026. So I drove out for the opening day of the one-room show, which miraculously includes three pages of Leaf\u2019s hand-written manuscript, Lawson\u2019s book dummy, and all 37 original ink drawings of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Robert
Robert Lawson, Book dummy sketch for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFerdinand\u201d is \u201cThe Story\u201d of a little bull, living on a hillside below a fairytale Spanish castle, who likes nothing better than to laze in the shade of a cork tree and smell the flowers. All the other bulls run around like nutcases and \u201cbutt their heads together\u201d and dream of bull fighting in Madrid. One day, bull fight recruiters arrive. Ferdinand accidentally sits upon a bee, which promptly stings him, causing him to run around huffing and snorting and looking like \u201cthe largest and fiercest bull of all.\u201d So Ferdinand winds up in a Madrid bull fight ring with swaggering banderilleros and picadors and a matador. Ferdinand runs out to the center \u2026 but just sits and smells \u201cthe flowers in all the lovely ladies\u2019 hair.\u201d So they cart him back home, where \u201cHe is very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is the essence of the book, I think,\u201d says Jane Bayard Curley, who guest curated the exhibition, and was leading a tour at the Carle. \u201cFerdinand never leaves his happy place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""It
“It was his favorite tree….” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back in Nov. 15, 1936, Anne T. Eaton concluded in The New York Times Book Review: \u201cThe story of Ferdinand is highly diverting and text and pictures together make a hilarious bit of fun that appeals equally to young and old.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I didn\u2019t understand when I first found \u201cFerdinand\u201d was the historical context. Some saw the book as a controversial parable for peace. Curley notes, \u201cThe publishers didn\u2019t even want to publish ‘Ferdinand’ in 1936. They wanted to wait until the world settled down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFerdinand\u201d arrived in the early days of the civil war in Spain, which would, with Nazi help, land the insurgent fascist General Francisco Franco in control of Spain until his death in 1975. The New York Times front page on the day of the book review reported \u201cinsurgent\u201d planes killing 53 people in a bombing of central Madrid; meanwhile the German \u201cReich joins Japan in anti-Soviet Pact \u2026 Italian adherence is seen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year \u2018Ferdinand took the reading world by storm,\u201d Eaton offered as update in the Nov. 14, 1937, New York Times. “Adults carried it about with them to read to their friends; 7 and 8 year olds who had heard it read aloud once, begged to hear it again; 16-year-olds insisted on sharing it with their schoolmates and their teachers. Something of a phenomenon because of the tremendous range in age among his admirers, Ferdinand, this shockingly unmartial bull, who liked to \u2018sit just quietly and smell the flowers,\u2019 is still a best seller and the universality of his appeal, as set forth in text and drawings, indicates that his popularity will be a long one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This perhaps is what a nation desperate to stay out of a looming world war looks like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Munro
Munro Leaf erased \u201cthe Fierce” from his hand-written manuscript for The Story of Ferdinand, 1936. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Superior Soul<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Munro Leaf always said he wrote out \u201cFerdinand\u201d on a yellow legal pad in 40 minutes one rainy October afternoon in 1935. In the Carle exhibition, you can see how he thought better of his original title and erased the final two words from his penciled manuscript: \u201cFerdinand the Fierce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wrote \u2018Ferdinand\u2019 for my friend, Robert Lawson, who had been illustrating children\u2019s books for years, in the hope it would amuse him enough to create pictures that would provide a quiet laugh,\u201d Leaf said at The New York Times National Book Fair on Nov. 17, 1937. \u201cIf the book fails to make you chuckle there is no excuse for its existence, so far as I am concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunching with Leaf, B.R. Crisler reported in the Oct. 23, 1938, New York Times that the author \u201cintend the book as a vehicle to show the public what his friend, Robert Lawson, could do with a real illustrating assignment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawson had sold his first illustration to Harper\u2019s magazine in 1914. He \u201cstarted out drawing fairies and elves and gnomes for the first 15 years of his career,\u201d Curley says. In \u201cFerdinand,\u201d Lawson draws with sturdy, well-observed realism, leavened by a bit of caricature. He laced \u201cFerdinand\u201d with visual gags, Curley notes, like, \u201cThe corks on the tree grow in bunches like grapes. That\u2019s not how corks grow.\u201d Only one illustration differs from the dummy to the final book, Curley says. A page depicting \u201clovely ladies\u201d with flowers in their hair entering the bull fighting arena was originally \u201ca bevy of girls like a bouquet. One is holding a hot dog. The other is holding a banana. And they\u2019re making these lewd gestures. Lawson tried to get one past [editor] May Massee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""And
“And all the lovely ladies had flowers in their hair.” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ferdinand\u2019s lack of fight attracted criticism. \u201cThere were some politically motivated worrywarts who said this is a political book,\u201d Curley says. \u201cFerdinand is a communist. Ferdinand is a socialist. Ferdinand is a fascist. Ferdinand is gay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Leaf (1905\u20131976), who was born in Baltimore and grew up in Washington, D.C., nor Lawson (1892\u20131957), born in New York City and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, had been to Spain. Lawson dug through magazine articles about Spain at the New York Public Library for visual inspiration, Curley says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had no political axe to grind whatever,\u201d Curley insists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I can\u2019t help suspecting that Ferdinand\u2019s creators did intend to create a fable of peace for a world on the bring of war, and that Leaf\u2019s claim that the book was just jokes was a cover story to sidestep the controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Robert
Robert Lawson (from left), Munro Leaf and editor May Massee.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLetters began to pour into the publisher from individuals and societies saying that here was something alarming, being spread under the cloak of juvenile literature. I was deliberately corrupting children of an impressionable age,\u201d Leaf said at The New York Times National Book Fair in 1937. \u201cHere in \u2018Ferdinand\u2019 people saw the laissez-faire theory of economics seconded by the bourgeois ideology of utility. Letters complained that \u2018Ferdinand\u2019 was Red propaganda, others said it was Fascist propaganda, while a number protested it was subversive pacifism. On the other hand, one woman\u2019s club resolved that it was an unworthy satire of the peace movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. Leaf and Mr. Lawson shouldn\u2019t feel discouraged,\u201d The New York Times reassured in an unsigned editorial on Nov. 20, 1937. \u201cThere are those who love Ferdinand for his own sake and don\u2019t care whether he is Nazi or Communist, so long as he is true to himself.\u201d In retrospect, not exactly a ringing endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crisler wrote, \u201cLonely maiden ladies and bachelors seemed to be just as fond of the story as children, Mr. Leaf says; he thinks it\u2019s because Ferdinand is a non-conformist, and people identify themselves with his character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFerdinand\u201d models an alternative to the usual idea that macho violence is a foundation of manliness. Which prompted some to see Ferdinand as gay. \u201cLeaf was really more upset by that,\u201d Curley says. \u201cHe made a point of saying he boxed at Harvard and played lacrosse at the University of Maryland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaf, Crisler wrote, \u201cis indignant when wits suggest that Ferdinand is a sissy because he loves to sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers. He says Ferdinand is just a superior soul, a philosopher, and that his refusal to fight in the bull ring in Madrid, when there as a lovely bouquet to smell, was a proof of good taste and strength of character as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Animation
Animation cel for Walt Disney’s Ferdinand the Bull, 1938. Collection of Robert and Lydia Forbes. \u00a9 1938 Walt Disney Productions.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An Icon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walt Disney studios optioned \u201cFerdinand\u201d to turn the book into an animated short film, The New York Times reported in July 1937. Leaf liked to ruefully quip that he earned \u201c$800, divided three ways between me, Robert Lawson and the publisher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walt Disney, who voiced Ferdinand\u2019s mother, is caricatured in the cartoon as the matador and Disney animators appear as his assistants. The film took home the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoon).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Carle exhibit offers evidence of what followed: Ferdinand tin toys, games, pencil sharpeners, charm bracelets, sewing patterns, soap, and puppets, all produced under the auspices of Disney licensing chief Kay Kamen. Ferdinand also appeared as a 32-foot-tall balloon in the 1938 Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDisney merchandized Ferdinand. That lifted Ferdinand out of the literary world into the mercantile world and into American culture,\u201d Curley says. \u201cHe became an icon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ferdinand
Ferdinand tin toys, games, soap and jewelry marketed in conjunction with the Disney cartoon based on the book. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During World War II, Leaf authored a military manual about malaria, illustrated by Dr. Seuss, that was widely distributed among Allied troops in the Pacific theater. He later wrote a pamphlet promoting the Marshall Plan for the United States to provide economic assistance to restore postwar Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeaf was a negotiator and a peacemaker. His [Army] career in World War II was to run around and mediate between warring factions,\u201d Curley says. She recalled a story of Leaf being sent to a Michigan tank factory when productivity slacked. He found that WACs (Women\u2019s Auxiliary Army Corps) and WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) working there were prohibited from wearing makeup, while civilian women could and so \u201cgot all the men.\u201d Curley says, Leaf recommended loosening the makeup restrictions, and productivity was restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curley connects author and bull: \u201cFerdinand, then as now, is a peacemaker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fascist Spain and Nazi Germany had originally banned the book. Curley says the day after Franco died in 1975, Leaf got a call from a Spanish publisher about printing a version there. \u201cSuddenly Spain was ready to have Ferdinand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""All
“All the other bulls ran around snorting and butting…” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In all honesty, whatever the social controversy, Leaf\u2019s story of the peaceable \u201cFerdinand\u201d always struck me as a trifle. But Lawson\u2019s drawings are to die for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cFerdinand,\u201d the way Lawson alternates between thick outlines and fine line details gives his drawings energy. The sinewy precision of Lawson\u2019s line may be rooted in his skill in etching. His hatching follows the forms, efficiently giving them dimension. He leaves lots of the white of the page, as a stage\u2014grazing field, stone wall, bullring\u2014that can feel as if carefully illuminated by spotlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like W.W. Denslow\u2019s illustrations for \u201cThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz\u201d (1900) or Ernest Shepard\u2019s drawings for \u201cWinnie-the-Pooh\u201d (1926) and \u201cThe Wind in the Willows\u201d (1931), Lawson\u2019s flights of fancy are situated in a rigorously observed world. The solidity of Lawson\u2019s drawing, with a dash of caricature, gives ballast to Leaf\u2019s light story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet the sturdy realism of Lawson\u2019s \u201cFerdinand\u201d can feel like the end of a stylistic era–an era right before Modernism pushed art away from painstaking study of reality and toward flatness and abstract design. \u201cLawson was standing on the shoulders of the British Golden Age\u201d of illustration, Curley tells me. Turn of the 20th century artists like Arthur Rackham and Charles Heath Robinson. \u201cThat was his model.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawson went on to win the Caldecott Medal for \u201cThey Were Good and Strong\u201d in 1941 and the Newbury Medal for \u201cRabbit Hill\u201d in 1944, inspired by his home in Westport, Connecticut, where he had resided since 1923. He and his wife\u2014children\u2019s book author and illustrator Marie Abrams Lawson\u2014shared a studio in their house with their easels facing each other. In their garden stood a statue of Ferdinand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9 Greg Cook 2026 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Curator
Curator Jane Bayard Curley (right) introduces “Under the Cork Tree: The Story of Ferdinand” at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, May 9, 2026. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Book
Book cover for The Story of Ferdinand illustrated by Robert Lawson and written by Munro Leaf, 1936. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Robert
Robert Lawson, Cover illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Munro
Munro Leaf, Manuscript for The Story of Ferdinand, 1936, and Robert Lawson, Book dummy sketch for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Robert
Robert Lawson, Endpapers illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\""There
“There was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand.” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\""He
“He liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers.” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Animation
Animation cel for Walt Disney\u2019s Ferdinand the Bull, 1938. Collection of Robert and Lydia Forbes. \u00a9 1938 Walt Disney Productions.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\""He
“He didn’t look where he was sitting…” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Robert
Robert Lawson, Book dummy sketch for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\""He
“He wouldn’t fight and be fierce no matter what they did.” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Robert
Robert Lawson, Book dummy sketch for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\""So
“So they had to take Ferdinand home.” Robert Lawson, Illustration for The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, 1936. The Morgan Library & Museum, 1970.16:1-37, Gift of the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. \u00a9 1936 Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed 1964 Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd. Used by permission of Viking Children\u2019s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\""Under
“Under the Cork Tree: The Story of Ferdinand” at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, May 2026. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Parker
Parker Brothers Inc., Walt Disney\u2019s Ferdinand the Bull Board Game. Private Collection. \u00a9 1938 Parker Brothers Inc.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Ferdinand
Ferdinand tin toys, games, soap and jewelry marketed in conjunction with the Disney cartoon based on the book. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\u201cThe
\u201cThe Story of Ferdinand\u201d narration from Arrow Records, 1938, and Ferdinand Puppet with Bee from Crown Toy Company and Walt Disney Enterprises, 1938.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first encountered the celebrated 1936 picture book \u201cThe Story of Ferdinand\u201d not as a child, but as a young cartoonist trying to figure out how to draw with a brush dipped in ink. You couldn\u2019t press down on the long-bristled brush the way you could on a pen or pencil, the way I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,107],"tags":[211,635,1393,723,1394],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27928"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28055,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27928\/revisions\/28055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}