"The first gentleman I put down a paper mat for stared at it and then rolled his eyes," she said. "The look on his face told me: 'This needs a crayon.' So the next week I came back with crayons. The passengers laughed and started drawing right away."
As the sketches were completed, Van Valin posted them on the aircraft's interior walls. When she ran out of tape, she used Band-Aids. Soon, as the plane sped along at 35,000 feet, passengers were moving about the cabin, checking out the pictures and commenting on subject matter and artistic style.
"They were interacting, talking to one another," explaining what their drawings depicted, Van Valin said. "Crayons are nonthreatening. The pictures tell a lot about a person."
Some passengers sign their pictures. Others write their phone numbers on the back when they learn that Van Valin keeps each sketch and displays many of them at the employee lounge. She even remembers which flight some were aboard and what seat they were in. She said passengers draw whatever strikes their fancy.
"This woman is an actual artist, Barbara Psimis of Florida," she said, pointing to a delicately drawn koi on view at the Delta lounge.
"Tamara Weston, in her early teens, drew a boarding pass and a Delta plane. This psychedelic sunset was done by Jacquetta White; she was about 15," Van Valin said.
A 78-year-old, Hansel Stripling, depicted God looking down from heaven on a Delta jetliner, Van Valin said. An elderly Chinese woman, Hong Pu, sketched a scene from her hometown village. Alice Choy, a fashion-design school graduate, drew a self-portrait depicting her in cap and gown, surrounded by flowers. A boy of about 13, Joe Conigliaro, was returning home from Disneyland, so he drew stick-figure depictions of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters.
Passengers never forget Van Valin's flight -- or their artwork.
"Mine was a little doodle of Honolulu with lots of colorful buildings and the ocean around it," recalled Julie Smith, a middle school math and science teacher who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes. "It was a flight to Maui. I set my book down and started doodling and pretty soon it was time to land."
Smith, who is in her 40s, agreed that air travel is less enjoyable than it used to be. On her return flight from Hawaii, takeoff was delayed when someone found a suspicious backpack aboard the aircraft. "We went back to the gate, and they pretty much tore the plane's bathrooms apart looking," she said.
