ADVENTURE, CHARTS & ILLUSTRATIONS, INSPIRATION

The Periodic Table Of The Elements Of Adventure

Handwritten text: Sometime last fall, I was out trail running in the mountains and I got caught in a little wind and rain, and I started thinking about being out in “the elements.” Handwritten text: “The elements” being one way we refer to weather. There are many different definitions of “element,” and as I kept running, my face getting stung by wind-whipped raindrops, I thought about the definition that means “ingredient.” Like the elements of a good novel, or restaurant, or song, for example. Handwritten text: And then I started thinking about some of the elements of an adventure, or a good day in the outdoors: Trails, Sweat, Dirt, Rocks, Trees, Curiosity, Sunsets Handwritten text: The list got really long, and I started thinking about The Periodic Table of Elements, which I damn near had memorized during my high school chemistry class. What about making a “Periodic Table of the Elements of Adventure”? I bet I could think of 118 “elements of adventure.” Handwritten text: So I sat down and and started making a list. [photo of hand-drawn list on graph paper] Handwritten text: And then I drew a periodic table and tried to figure out where to put everything. [photo of periodic table drawn on graph paper] Handwritten text: I thought it might make a fun poster, so I spent a good chunk of a week drawing the whole thing on my iPad.