Red in a Race Car

"What's for the snack sack today?"

"You pick."

"Me? You said you had a bunch of Easter ideas. What are they?"

"But it's past Easter."

"What are they?"

He sat thinking, expressionless and silent.

"You forgot?"

"Yeah. And then I had too much fun this weekend." We had spent some time poolside with friends.

I ran a general search for Easter related drawings but he didn't even want to browse.

"I kind of want you to do another Angry Birds Go!."

"But I just did that not too long ago."

"But you've done three dragons."

"Yeah, buy they're all different. The Angry Birds all look the same every time."

"Well, you can just do a different one today. Then another one tomorrow." He's been drawing the Angry Birds Go! characters himself lately. On several occasions he's brought home from school drawing pages full of colorful renditions of each bird. I suppose he wants me to draw them all too. I'd prefer it if he'd broaden his thinking a bit to come up with new options.

After some more back and forth, I relented. I ran a search and picked this one myself. I held it up for him to see. He agreed it was a good option. He kept to himself as I drew.

"What do you think of the sack?" I asked him when I was finished.

"I like it."

That's all I got from him. I think he was as frustrated with me as I was with him.

Angry Birds Go!

"What do you want me to do today?"

"Can you please do something Easter?"

"Like what?"

"The Easter Bunny!"

"Um, okay, but Easter is 4 weeks away."

"Okay, let's not do Easter stuff then." He thought for a little bit. "Hmm. How about you pick?"

He had asked me to pick yesterday, but I encouraged him to keep thinking. He ended up picking Lord Business which was fun to draw. Today, I was ready with a suggestion, "Okay, how about Angry Birds Go!?" We played the game for the first time yesterday and he was very excited about this racing installment of the Angry Birds franchise of games.

"Yes!" he shouted.

I knew he'd like the idea. Of course, he picked a reference with not one, not two, but 5 cars and birds! The scene itself was simple enough so I gave it a go. I ended up running over time to get it done and we got to school a minute late.

"Do my name like the 'Go!' And make it 'Angry Birds Victor'!" he told me. He thought about it some more, then corrected himself, "No, make it 'Angry Birds Victor Go!'!" I did and he loved it. "Yup this is good! Yup, this is my favorite! This is my favorite one this month."

That's new. He's never classified favorites by month before.

Star Wars Angry Birds

Star Wars Angry Birds

"Can you do two Star Wars Angry Birds?" he asked with hesitation. "Two?" he repeated.

"Yes," I said, sensing he expected me to say, "no."

I handed him my iPhone and he picked an image with R2-D2 and C-3PO as Angry Birds. I wasn't thrilled about doing just those two and told him so. He found this full version with all the characters and sheepishly asked, "Do you think you can do all this?"

"Yes!" I said confidently. We had plenty of time today.

When I first started he came over to my side of the kitchen table and asked, "How's it going?"

"I'm having a little trouble with the proportions," I said honestly, wondering to myself if it would all come together.

"Well, it doesn't look much like it," he said ruthlessly without intending to be. "At least not right now," he added to soften the blow. I did my best to ignore the comment.

I had to take a break in the middle of drawing to send off an email. When I came back from the office, he told me that there was a surprise on the back and flipped the sack over. He had drawn three small hearts with long balloon-like strings flowing to the bottom of the back of the sack. He added his name too which is why it's not on the main drawing on the front of the sack. I could tell he was proud of the additions. It was very sweet.

When I was done he said, "I like it! I like it, Daddy! Looks cool!" more than making up for the early criticism. The drawing had come together despite all the mistakes I made.

"Thanks, Buddy!"

"Jeez, you're really good at drawing, Dad! You're the best!"

I'm not sure about that, I thought to myself, but he sure does make me feel special sometimes!

My Piggy

My Piggy

"What's for the snack sack today?"

"My piggy?" He was referring to his Angry Birds King Pig piggy bank. He broke the crown off of it yesterday. We glued it back on and had left it to dry overnight on the kitchen table.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy to draw considering it was a round physical object in front of me versus my usual outline drawing reference. I messed up early on and considered starting over. Instead, I decided to just power through.

As I drew, he looked over my shoulder. "Can you make it 3D? It doesn't look 'out,'" he informed me. "Actually this eye looks 'out,'" pointing to the left one, "but the other does not." I did my best to add some shading but that still didn't really meet his expectations.

I added the coins at his request before he took over the Sharpie and went crazy with the arrows. 

"Less is more," I reminded him several times, but he kept adding to it. 

"The 'r' is gonna be so tricky," he said as he began finding spots for the letters in his name. It was indeed tricky. It ended up on the back of the sack as it did a couple of weeks ago.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds

"I know! Angry Birds!"

I did this one quickly. He loved that the O in his name had a bird in it. I told him, "That's what you'd look like if you were an Angry Bird!" He laughed as he studied each of the birds separately.