Yoda

"Do you want to pick a thing from the book or something else?" I asked him. Turns out the "Draw 50 Monsters" book is full of lots of things that aren't really monsters.

"The book!" he exclaimed. He started flipping. Literally two seconds later he shouted, "Here it is!"

"Yoda?"

"Yup."

"Do you thank me for picking fast?"

"Yes, thank you," I said graciously. I often give him a hard time for taking too long to pick something.

I wonder what Yoda would think about being in a book of monsters. "Wrong, it is," he might say.

I started strong and confident but had to throw out my first attempt. I hadn't left enough room for his right ear. Victor took notice. After that, I worked diligently, hardly looking up from the page.

"Oooh, I like it!" he said sweetly. "It looks just like it," he added encouragingly. "You left enough space this time."

I overcompensated is what I did, I thought. Overall, Yoda is proportional, but because I needed all that space for his ears, his face is tall where it should be wide. Luckily it still looks like Yoda, but in retrospect I needed to have turned the bag sideways, drawing in landscape, to fit his wildly wide ear-span.

This eagle looking thing...

"Are we doing another one from the 'Draw 50 Monsters' book?" I asked him.

He flipped through it some. "This one," he said pointing, "This eagle looking thing."

"Yeah, okay," I said looking at the griffin. "That's not really a monster either," I added, comparing it to yesterday's funny faced monster.

"I know."

"And Darth Vader's not a monster either." Vader was on the page opposite the griffin. "He's more of a bad guy." I flipped through the book some more. "And Yoda's in there too!? He's not a bad guy. He's a good guy. This book is very confusing."

"I know," he agreed.

I worked from the bottom up, starting with the back legs. I think that was a mistake. It had me drawing backwards from right to left which made things tough for me. Some days I'm just not that into the drawing and today was one of those days. I just wanted to be done with it from the moment I started.

"It's good," is all he said about it when he saw the finished version.

Surprisingly, he brought it home. He's grown more sentimental about them, as have I. I expect most of the sacks will likely make it back home from now on. I can understand that it'd be hard for him to intentionally throw them away anymore.

Funny Faced Monster

Last night, on the way upstairs, he grabbed the book he had brought home from his school library and said, "I have to show you something so funny!" He was giggling just thinking about it. "My friend and I couldn't stop laughing all day," he told me. The book was "Draw 50 Monsters" and I couldn't imagine what might be so funny in it. He flipped the pages pausing on this "Esobite mouth creach" (whatever that is) and gave out a laugh as loud as any he'd belt out from a good tickling.

He looked at me for my reaction. I was smiling but only because of him, not because of this "monster".

"You have to do this tomorrow!" he shouted.

This morning, he again started to giggle as he found the page for me. When he found it in the book, he belted out a laugh loud enough to wake the neighbors.

I got started with the fat tip of the Sharpie for a change. I drew the mouth outline and realized I hadn't left room for the tail. I tossed the sack and started over, this time inking the tail first. As a consequence, I ran out of room for the full width of its face. If you can believe me, the original reference has an even wider mouth. I switched to the thin tip of the Sharpie mid-way as I lost confidence and didn't want to make any other major mistakes.

After he finished his breakfast, he walked over and laughed another big laugh as he saw this monster coming to life on the sack. "It doesn't really look like a monster, right?" he commented.

I nodded. "It reminds me of the warthog in the Lion King."

"Yeah, but the warthog doesn't have elephant feet."

He went to go brush his teeth and I wrapped things up with a smile on my face. He's been critical as of late so I expected him to pick this one apart. He didn't. When he came back into the room, he bursted out laughing as soon as he turned the corner. He slapped his hands, his head, and threw his whole body onto the sofa as he convulsed from laughter. I think he liked it.

Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey

"What should we do today?"

"Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey."

That came out of nowhere. He's never seen Fantasia. I did a search and handed him my iPhone.

"Do you remember this, Daddy?" he asked, pointing to a classic shot from the cartoon.

"No. I've only seen Fantasia once so I don't remember it."

"Do you think I'd like it?"

"No, not really. It's all about nightmares."

"I didn't think Nightmare Before Christmas was scary."

"That's true, but you asked me and, no, I don't think you'll like it."

I paid special attention to detail on this one. I wanted to get it right.

"Oooo!" he said, looking at the finished sack. "I don't see his mouth. Did he he have a mouth?" Without waiting for me to answer, he continued, "Let me see. Oh. No. He didn't have a mouth. Okay. Good."

This one came home! Three in a row. It's one of my favorites too.

Hades

"What should we do today?"

"A rocket."

"I've already done a rocket." He said rocket because he studied rockets and did related experiments in his Mad Science class yesterday.

"A real rocket."

"I've already done a rocket several times."

"Have you ever done a bomb?"

"No and I'm not going to. I don't like bombs."

"Okay, something cool." He thought for awhile. "Hades." From the cartoon Hercules he meant. We had just seen the Disney version recently. I had to look up how to spell the name and learned a little more about this Greek god of the underworld from Wikipedia.

He took a long time finding something. I didn't see many good drawings so I let him pick out a movie frame snapshot. I didn't expect to do the background but he asked me about it, so I scribbled in the curtains quickly. It doesn't look great, but it looked empty with an empty background. 

I really wasn't very into this one today; not like yesterday's Dragon Maleficent. He's into villains, though, so this sack came home too.

Dragon Maleficent

"What's for the snack sack today?"

"Remember the Dragon Maleficent!?!"

He had picked Maleficent's dragon form before we did Maleficent yesterday. He woke up very early so we had plenty of time. The problem with having the time is that I take the time. This was about 40 min of work as opposed to the usual 15 to 20.

I worked from the bottom up which was a bit odd, but that helped me maintain focus. Instead of trying to draw the dragon, I was drawing the lines and shapes I saw before me. Toward the end, I was pressed for time and was forced to rapidly worked in the details of the castle. I filled in the black parts as quickly as I could.

"Whoa! Now that is good! Now that is good!"

"Show me where the mistake is," I prodded.

He found it right away. "It's good. Except that the face doesn't look so mean. But it's good," he repeated, reaching out to touch my arm affectionately.

This one came home today. I knew it would.

Maleficent

"What's for the snack sack today?" I asked as we poured pancake batter into a pan. We made pancakes together this morning for the very first time ever.

He startled me when he blurted out, "Maleficent!"

After we finished off our pancakes, I ran a search and handed him my iPhone. He picked the dragon first off. 

"Hey, that's not Maleficent," I said.

"Yes it is. The dragon is Maleficent."

"Well then, I'd have searched for the dragon if that's what you wanted."

"Okay, I'll pick Maleficent."

He did. I don't normally eat breakfast but did today. My side of the table, where I usually sit to draw, was all sticky from the syrup.

He must have noticed my dilemma because he asked, "Can you sit next to me, Daddy?"

"Yeah!"

"You know why I wanted you to sit here?"

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to look at your drawing."

"If I sit next to you, I don't want you kicking my chair."

"I won't."

Sure enough, just after I started drawing, he started kicking my chair. I reprimanded him pretty strongly and he withdrew. He pouted, but I stayed focussed on the drawing. He got up. Unfortunately, he ended up not watching me at all today.

"Oh, okay," he said approaching me when I was just about done. "Um, can you put her parrot on here?" he asked, pointing to her shoulder. The crow was in the reference drawing but I had planned on omitting it.

"You really want it?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you wouldn't be able to tell what it was."

"I can tell."

"You really want it?"

"Yeah," he said walking away again.

I added it and wrapped up the drawing.

"Did you do the bird?"

I showed it to him.

"Yeah, that's better."

It was.

Dr. Doofenshmirtz

"I know what you're drawing today," he said without me asking, channeling his inner Phineas. "Remember the mean Dr. Doofenshmirtz?"

"Yeah," I replied. He had called him "eee-vil" yesterday when he picked him before we settled in on a more complex scene with Dr. Doofenshmirtz fighting Perry.

"That's what you're drawing today."

"Okay."

"That's going to be easy!" he told me.

I wasn't so sure about that. I tried extra hard to focus on the details and proportions. I really wanted to get his eyebrows right but didn't. He looks good overall though.

He smiled when he saw it and a said, "Yes!"

I don't know why, but I started rushing when I was doing the name. Like a dummy, I spelled it wrong and left off the "H." Duh! I wanted to start all over but, of course, there was no time and nothing I could do about it.

He didn't mention it so I asked him, "Did you notice your name?"

He read it out loud in a funny way, not quite pronouncing it right. He smirked, but didn't say anything, which I think means he thought it was weird. Oh well. He didn't make mention of the spelling error either, presumably because he has no idea how it's supposed to be spelled.

What he did say was, "On the weekend can you do two snack sacks? For two of my friends?" He was going to have a playdate with them on Saturday. "I want you to show them how you do it."

That's new. I'm being commissioned!

This one came back home. He really liked it. That night over dinner, we started talking about Hubble's incredible photos from the deep reaches of outer space. I had the idea to display my iPhone screen onto our TV via Apple TV to appreciate them. We scanned through a few pics and then he said, "Hey! Can you show the snack sacks so that they just play."

"I can!" I set the album on my iPhone to play in slideshow mode. We watched the whole set of 260+ snack sacks with our eyes glued to the TV. We kept staring and making little comments. We both thoroughly enjoyed reviewing the work and he complimented me throughout. It was a very sweet moment.

"How are you so good?" he asked when the slideshow had run its course.

"All I do is try," I answered.

Dr. Doofenshmirtz Fighting Perry

“What’s for the snack sack today?"

"Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry,” he said sticking to the plan he made yesterday morning. Before I could say anything, he added, "Oh, we definitely don't have time to do them fighting...or do we?”

“No, I don't think I can do both.”

He seemed okay with that. I searched for Dr. Doofenshmirtz only. "Ha! This one," he said finding one quickly. "He looks eee-vil," he said, mimicking Dr. Doofenshmirtz.

"Because he is eee-vil,” I added.

I was about to start but thought, Oh, what the hell?! I'd rather do a full scene. I looked up Dr. Doofenshmirtz fighting Perry and handed him back the iPhone.

There weren't many options. He first picked one with Perry in the exact same pose as in the snack sack I had done of Perry last year. I didn't want to do it again, even if it was now part of a scene. I asked him to pick something else. 

He picked this one which looked fun to me. I completely messed up Doofenshmirtz at the get-go. I tried to fix him but ended up just throwing the whole thing out. That caused me to be really pressed for time. I got Doofenshmirtz right the second time, but he looked as if he was smiling as opposed to angrily fighting. I tried to curl the corner of his mouth down a bit, but didn't want to risk messing up his whole look with too much ink around his mouth. It's the small things I struggle with sometimes when I'm not 100% focussed on all the details, especially critical ones. 

Victor noticed right away. "Why'd you make Doofenshmirtz a little happy?” he asked.

“What?” I said, although I, of course, knew exactly what he was taking about. 

"You made him a little too happy.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” I admitted. "I tried to curl his mouth down a bit, but he still looks a little happy, I know.”

"It's good except for that," he consoled.

As usual, nothing gets by him. He's critical like his Dad.

Dukey

"What are we doing today?"

"Dukey."

Okay, I've seen Johnny Test twice now so I at least know that Dukey is the talking dog. The episode we watched yesterday was largely about Dukey and how he wanted to go to bring-your-pet-to-school day. Johnny picked his pet lizard instead, fearing Dukey might end up the star of a reality series if he brought him to school. I like the show. It's funny.

There weren't too many options for Dukey. Victor picked out an image of him with a super fat belly. Laughing, he showed me the phone and said, "Okay, this one."

"No," I said, "That doesn't look like him."

He found a different one with Dukey not even the main focus of the capture. "Okay, this one."

"No," I said.

He ended up picking this silly one of Dukey in bunny slippers, reading with his morning coffee. I messed up the proportions at first, but I was able to fix it. I retraced over the entire drawing which helped cover up some of the mistakes.

He liked it. "Cool!" he said. He looked at me and asked, "Are you going to do the 'Test' part?" He was wondering about his name and thinking about how I had done it in the Johnny Test from yesterday.

"No. I'm just going to do your name."

He watched as I filled in the mini Johnny Test silhouette inside the letter "O".

Reiterating his comments from yesterday, he said, "I love how you do it so small."

As we were walking out of the house, he planned out the snack sacks for the rest of the week. "Tomorrow I want you to do Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Then the next day I want you to do Perry."

I nodded in agreement.

"Or...could you do Dr. Doofenshmirtz fighting Perry?"

"If I have time."

"Okay, then I need to wake up early tomorrow and you need to get ready early tomorrow so that you have time."

"Okay," I said as we walked out into the sunlight.