Robot Knight

His "How to Draw Robots" book was due back to the school library today so I knew we'd be doing one last robot.

I did not wake up with the same energy that I had yesterday so when he picked this robot knight, I gave an internal sigh. It was just about as complex as yesterday's robot man. I wondered if my low mood would affect the outcome. To my surprise, it did not. I worked for over 30 min with the Extra Fine Tip Sharpie again. I like how it gives me more control. I worked deliberately, but felt rushed toward the end. I had to draw the lower half of his body in half the time I did his upper half.

I was disappointed that I hadn't left enough room for the full sword; but, I am happy that the angles and proportions came out pretty good. It's not quite as tight as yesterday's but it still looks cool. 

"He's fat Daddy," was what Victor had to say when he saw it finished.

"No he's not," I said defensively.

"To me he is. His shoulders are a little puffy."

I ignored him and packed up our stuff to go. After all my work, it was a little disappointing that he was critical. I could have used some good will today to boost my spirits.

Robot Man

"Are we going to do a robot or something else?" I asked directly. We had misplaced the "How to Draw Robots" book, but I found it yesterday.

"A robot," he said.

He picked this robot man that looks like a transformer. I considered following the instructions and steps but decided to just do it my way. I had plenty of time today for a change, so I took my time. I wanted to get this one right and proportional. I usually use the Ultra Fine Point end of the twin-tipped Sharpie, but today I switched it out for an Extra Fine Point Sharpie I had in the drawer. It allowed for me to focus in on the detailed features of his face. I stuck with it for the rest of the drawing. This was the very first time I'd used this more precise Sharpie and I enjoyed working with it. I'm very proud of how the drawing turned out.

I was so lost in the work, in fact, that I forgot that I still had things to do to get ready. I was out of time and I still had to go upstairs to change. He was studying the drawing when I ran back downstairs.

"What do you think of this guy?" I asked out of breath.

"Oh, he's cool!" he replied.

It was hoping for a bigger reaction, but I can tell that he really liked it since he brought this one home after school.

Dragon Robot

"Do you want me to do a robot?" I asked. He brought home the book, "How to Draw Robots," yesterday from the school library. 

"Yeah!" he exclaimed.

"You cannot do this, right?" he asked cautiously right off the bat.

I came over to see he was referring to an intro page with 7 complex robot people and animals. "Um, no," I said.

He flipped through the book and came back to the intro page and asked, "Can you just to this?" tracing the outline of one of the characters with his finger.

"The dragon robot?" I asked.

"Yeah. Can you just do this?" he asked again, repeating the action of tracing his finger around it.

"It's not in the book somewhere?" I asked.

"No," he said flipping through the book to prove it to me. I flipped through it myself thinking he must have skipped a page, but sure enough, it wasn't in there.

"Okay. I guess I'll draw it from here then. I have the time today."

This was a pretty cool robot. We couldn't believe it didn't have a page all to itself. Books like this one always break the process into steps that build the drawing in layers. They include blocking lines and basic shapes that are supposed to be erased when the drawing is complete. I never do that. Perhaps I'm doing it the hard way, but I pick a starting point and draw out from there completely free hand, simply following my 8th grade art teacher's instruction to, "Draw what I see, not what I think I see." At times my drawings are off alignment or out of proportion, but only sometimes. Usually, I do pretty well with the angles and proportions just by maintaining concentration. It's especailly cool when I hit all the angles and proportions spot on like I was able to do this time.

"Oh, he looks super scary!" he said when he saw it complete. He studied it. Then he added out of the blue, "Sometimes you should make your own drawings. Is that going to be hard?"

"Yup."

"You have to practice if you want to. That's if you want to. But you don't want to, right?"

"Not really. It's just that it's hard for me to draw something if I'm not looking at it," I told him.

Perhaps one day I will start taking a turn at drawing creatively from my mind's eye, but right now I don't yet feel ready.

Robot Monster

Robot Monster

"What's for the snack sack today?" I asked absently. I was distracted by work issues this morning.

"My robot. Daddy, do my robot," he said without delay. He was talking about one of his toys.

I didn't respond, lost in my email inbox.

"Never mind. Just do a robot from your phone," he said as I looked up at him.

I'm not sure why he changed his mind about his own robot, but I didn't press. I dismissed his first few options since he kept picking complex transformer-like humanoids. I didn't want to spend the time today drawing all that detail. Plus, I was expecting him to pick something more like a traditional robot which is the image that came to my mind when he first said "robot".

When he picked this image, I initially rejected it as well. He was frustrated with me so I took a closer look and realized that this is a very cool scene. What's more, I always enjoy working on blacked out drawings like this one. They look so striking! I was able to put my work stress aside and become fully immersed in this one. It took a lot longer than I expected. Just coloring in all the black took quite a while, especially on the parts where I took care to leave outlines and highlights uncolored. I'm glad we stuck with this choice because it's actually one of my all-time favorites.

He told me not to write "Victor Monster" which is definitely what I would have done had he not said anything. He was excited to add his name, although I wasn't happy with where he put it. The sneaky R, however, found a great spot hiding amid the rubble.

A Robot

A Robot

"What's for the snack sack today?" I asked him.

"Let's see," he said contemplatively, "a machine!"

"What kind of machine?"

"Um, no. A robot!"

"Okay." I searched for robots and handed him my iPhone. He flicked through the images for some time and picked this one.

"That's not a robot." At least not really, I thought. It was sort of like a cyborg dinosaur.

"I know. They don't have robots," he said about the options.

That wasn't true and I shot him a look that said as much.

"But I want that one. It looks cool."

I couldn't argue with that. I wasn't sure I'd have enough time to get in finished in time, but I worked efficiently to get it done. This was our 100th snack sack! I had no idea when we started that our little project would have such longevity.