Lee’s Summit illustrator Dave Eames has chronicled the big and small events of his daily life in pen-and-ink drawings for the past 45 years.
The pages of his notebooks, which are crowded on two shelves in his home studio, are filled with drawings of the places Eames visits, the people he meets, and frequent adventures with his golden retriever, Hobbes.
“My high school art teacher, Andy Zoller, encouraged all the students in his class to start keeping a personal journal,” says Eames, 59. “He wanted us to write and express ourselves in every kind of way.”
Ever since, Eames’ journal has become a tactile way of downloading his day onto the page, and keeping his skills sharp.
“It's no different than the music teacher telling you to play piano every day, or a gym teacher telling you to shoot free throws,” Eames says. “You just get better at it.”
Lately, though, Eames’ journals have become more of an open book.
The former Kansas City Star illustrator shares many of the pages on social media, and some 10,000 followers track his posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Last March, a two-page spread from his diary was viewed more than 6.7 million times after his son posted it online. The drawing depicted a torrent of illness Eames experienced after eating a bad egg.
“That night my phone never stopped buzzing and, by the next morning, I think I had 10,000 followers who wanted to see the musings that I do every day,” he remembers.
These days, Eames tries to post pages from his diary online two or three times a week. Thankfully, most of the events aren’t as dramatic as the bad egg.
“The majority of the pages are absolutely mundane and have almost no value whatsoever, outside of something I saw or wanted to put on paper that day,” he says.
Eames, who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, admits his inaugural entries were a little rough.
“It has kind of cringeworthy, sometimes very awkward, sort of teenage stuff in there,” Eames said. “But that's what started it and it did light the fire that I've kept going.”
The routine has also helped develop Eames’ professional practice. As co-owner of Fossil Forge, a commercial sign fabrication shop in downtown Lee's Summit, Eames’ skills in lettering and typography help in the creation of neon and hand-painted signs.
Since launching the business 12 years ago, the shop has added more than 60 neon signs to downtown Lee's Summit.
“We really want to keep traditional sign craft alive, and we've been really fortunate to make a mark on our downtown,” said Eames, who was named the city’s Citizen of the Year in 2024. “It has changed the streetscape in a really positive way with light, color, vibrancy and beauty.”
Unlike his professional career, Eames’ journaling doesn’t come with the pressure to perform. The freedom allows him to flex his creative muscles.
“You're unbridled from having an assignment or a goal,” Eames says, “and you can be yourself in the journals.”
It’s also become a way of marking time.
“Every now and then it's cool to pull one down and see what I was doing in 1997, or 1985,” Eames says. “You realize how different your life is now. But yet so much of what you were then, you see echoes of it today.”
