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.

You can pick a car...

You can pick a car...

"Go look in my backpack and you can pick a car."

"Okay," I said heading to the entryway to find his backpack.

He brought home a library book, "How to Draw Cars," by Mark Bergin. I took ownership of picking out the car and zeroed in on this race car. It's a Bentley Speed 8. I ran out of room and struggled to maintain the proper perspective throughout. I didn't follow the guidance from the book, preferring to go at it in my own way.

I'm my own worst critic and wasn't all too happy with it. By contrast, when he saw it, he said with a big smile, "Whoa! Jeesh you're good!"

Race Car

Race Car

"What's for the snack sack today?"

"Race car."

I had to think back and was surprised we hadn't done one before. "Okay," I said as I did a search and asked him to "pick one with not too much detail."

"Is this one too much detail or just medium?"

"It's medium."

I gave him the option to pick his own number. He chose 120. I completely got the proportions all wrong on this one. "Maybe next time you can do it longer," he suggested kindly.

"You're right. The front is a little squished." 

"Let me add something," he said taking the Sharpie in hand. "Whoosh, whoosh," he said, "It's like racing in the sand." He drew whoosh marks and sand dots. "You want to add a motor and stuff?" he asked. I realized right away that he meant an exhaust pipe.

"No," I replied, "I like to draw what I see, not what's not there."

"Okay," he said as he put the last few whooshes onto the sack.