A Humming Bird

A Humming Bird

"Any ideas for today's sack?"

He sat thinking for a minute. "It's not a crystal. It's a gem or a ruby or something." He clearly was picturing something in his mind. "Okay, just a crystal," he said in defeat unable to identify what he was thinking about.

"We've already done a crystal. Twice. Pick something new," I scolded mildly.

"Okay, I'll search for a ruby, but it won't look like a ruby since it won't be red." He searched for a couple of minutes. "Since there's no ruby that I like, I'll just pick a humming bird."

He always surprises me with his sudden shifts of subject. Before I got started, we had a heated exchange about him messing around instead of eating his breakfast. He was insolent with me, so when I sat down to draw I was still upset from the exchange.

He took interest in how I got started. Looking over the table at me as I worked, he asked, "Daddy, how do you always get it to look so right? A lot of times you get it to look so right without messing up. How do you do that?"

"I concentrate. I try to focus. I remember to draw what I see," I replied without looking up. I thought to myself, I definitely mess up quite a bit, but am able to cover it up much of the time.

"Can you teach me to draw?"

"Sure, but you haven't wanted to sit down and learn. You've brought home several drawing books but haven't wanted to practice."

"Daddy, your'e almost the best drawer in the... family. Right, Daddy?" He was probably going to say "the whole world" or something like that, but he hesitated and changed his mind for some reason.

"I don't know," I said. There was definitely still a bit of tension in the air between us.

"Well, who's the best builder in the family?"

"Grandpa from California," I said. We'd talked about that before.

I messed up a bunch on this humming bird.  Maybe it was the pressure from the compliments or perhaps it was my surly mood that caused me to lose focus. The worst part is that it is overly puffy which makes it less immediately recognizable as a humming bird.

"Ah, very good. The V has wings!" he said remarking on his name. He gave the bird a closer look and said, "It's kind of fat Daddy."

I explained about the proportions and how I drew the body line too wide making the whole bird appear too large.

"Looks like it's a boy 'cause it's fat!" he said as he chuckled. I smiled too. I gave him a hug and we went to the next room to get our shoes on.