Ice Castle from Disney's Frozen

"What should we do today?"

"Ice castle," he said without hesitation. This was the third time he'd asked me so I couldn't refuse.

"Finally I have enough time," I told him. In fact, I had it in mind to attempt the ice castle today anyway. I had even considered waking up early to do it justice. I had visions of doing an amazing job, but it didn't quite work out that way. Even though I had a lot of time, I still felt rushed. Plus, the reference color poster snapshot was not an easy reference to work from.

When he saw it, he started in with his critique. First off he said, "You could have written 'Frozen.'"

I shrugged at him with my eyes. I had no more time left to add anything.

"Oh well, there's not a lot of detail. But it's okay."

"Just okay?" I asked.

He said, "Yeah. There's not a lot of detail."

I showed him the picture reference and defended myself, "See there's not that much detail in the picture."

"Yes there is!" he said animatedly. "See all that!" he said pointing to the castle, "That's detail." He continued, "And there's this swirl, like a tornado," he said pointing to a wisp of cloud coming out of the castle and into the sky. 

"Yeah, okay," I conceded. "It was pretty hard to do," I added looking for a little compassion.

He understood and just let it be as we headed out the door to school.

Snowboarder Guy

Snowboarder Guy

We spent last week at Mammoth Mountain. I skied for the first time in over 20 years and he snowboarded for the first time ever. He really wanted to try snowboarding, but after being told by all sources that it's easier for kids to start on skis, my wife and I weren't sure who to listen to. Ultimately we left the decision up to him and his passion was clearly with snowboarding. He was a natural, picked it up right away, and was snowboarding down the mountain on his second day of lessons. We had a really great week in the snow.

The only downside is that I caught a cold and was feeling pretty sick today. I let him know that as I suggested, "How about something with the snowy mountains? I'm not feeling well, so how about something easy?"

"A hotel!" he exclaimed.

"Uh, that doesn't have anything to do with the snowy mountains. A hotel can be anywhere."

"Oh. Right," he said as he considered several options out loud. "A mountain is too easy. A gondola is medium.  A snowboarder guy is too easy. A hotel can be anywhere." He paused before settling on an idea he felt worthy for today, "How about a village?"

After hearing him brush aside options he felt were too easy, then settling on something complex, I reminded him with some anguish in my voice, "I don't want hard. I'm not feeling well."

"Sometimes people are tricking when they say they're not feeling well," he responded blankly.

His lack of sympathy and the insinuation that I was faking it got me very mad. I left the kitchen and went upstairs to change. On my way up I said, "I'm not going to do a snack sack today. You're just being mean."

He came upstairs and apologized while I was getting ready. He gave me a hug and conceded, "Okay, you can do a snowboarder guy."

After the bumpy start, I decided not to get his input on which drawing to choose. I picked this one out and to keep it simple, I blacked out the snowboarder instead of drawing the details. He came to my side of the kitchen table when he was finished with breakfast and took a look. He told me, "It would be more awesomer if you didn't do it all black."

I was amazed that he noticed and had to agree with him. I just didn't have the energy today. I still like it though, as did he.

How about Mario driving...

How about Mario driving...

"Do you want to do all the detail?" he asked after he picked a pretty complex scene of Mario driving. "You don't have to if you don't want to." He went on, "You just have to draw the road and the water. You don't have to do the mountains."

I was up for the challenge today. We hadn't spent much time drawing scenes and I was interested in doing this one. I went ahead and drew the road, the water, the mountains, Mario, and Pac-Man. I spent a lot of time on this one and enjoyed the process.

When he saw it he asked, "You only drew these two?" Although he was correct that I had omitted the other drivers from the original, I was a bit stunned by the response. I brushed the negative feelings off quickly. He moved on too.

"Where's my name daddy?" (I love it when he calls me daddy.) I didn't answer, allowing his eyes the time to scan the drawing. He found it and noticed the "V" on Pac-Man's kart too. Victor Karts. What a fun game that would be!

How about my letters at the top of a snowy mountain...

How about my letters at the top of a snowy mountain...

Before he asked me to draw the tallest building in the world yesterday, he asked me to draw his letters "digging a hole in the snow." I had no idea what he meant by that, so I pushed him for another idea and  we went with the tallest building thing. Looks like he didn't forget about the snow though. Snowy mountains on a brown sack aren't easy to pull off. After I drew them, I figured I needed something to add a little more context, hence the random skier giant slaloming down the side.

He added his letters, my favorite part of this drawing, with his now signature expressive eyebrows. They make me smile.

Oh, and I almost forgot this exchange of ours:

"Dad, do you know what a hurky is?"

"No, what is it?"

"This is a hurky. This is a hurky of snow falling on this guy's head," he said to me as he was filling in the black mark above the skier's head.

"A hurky?"

"Yup."

Okay, then. A hurky of snow is what's falling on the skier's head. You learn something new everyday. :)