Elephant and Piggie

"What should we do today?"

"Elephant and Piggie."

"What are their names?" I asked. He's a fan of all the Mo Willems characters so I was familiar with the books, but not sure what to type in for the search.

"Gerald and Piggie. Piggie's name is just Piggie."

"Really?" I looked it up and sure enough they are, "Elephant and Piggie."

He browsed through the options for a very, very long time. Then he picked a shot from a book that had them both together with Piggie on Gerald's head, twice. "This one!"

"There is no way I'm drawing them both...twice. Pick something else, please."

He picked this one of Gerald holding a book with no cover art and Piggie sitting on top. "This one then."

He started to suggest what I could draw on the book cover and I said, "No, you can draw on the book."

That worked out perfectly because I've been looking for a way to get him involved in the drawing, something he hasn't done in a long time. I drew the setup and left the book cover empty for him to fill in. He was excited to draw, but earlier before breakfast, I had given him a big speech about having to do reading practice this morning. I couldn't back down from that, so he read for about 10 minutes before he got started.

He planned to do a shot of the three main Mo Willems characters, Pigeon, Elephant, and Piggie. I had drawn the Pigeon last year. Victor typically holds the marker so tight and presses down so hard that he's messed up a few tips by using a marker just once, so I picked out an already worn down Sharpie. I handed it to him.

He sat down and looked like a mini version of me staring at the reference, then back at the sack, then back at the reference again, drawing in short stages. He did a great job and I coached him throughout the process. I taught him how to cover up mistakes, how to decide which was the next line to draw, how to estimate distances, and how to make sure it looks "close enough." He took direction well, although he was anxious at times to keep drawing when I paused to explain a technique.

He thought the elephant looked like a girl, so he labeled him "Boy." Ha! 

Then he started adding more stuff. He added the title of the book next. I looked over his shoulder and asked, "Do you want to actually spell it right?"

He paused looking down at his words. "No," he said and continued to spell things his way. 

He added Piggie Mom at the top who was "falling from somewhere." Then he added Piggie Dad at the bottom.

I was very impressed by his work, especially with his Gerald. "Great job today!" I praised him.

"That was fun drawing and reading!" he said on our way out.

When he came home, I saw the sack in his backpack. I asked him, "What did your friends think?"

At first he lied and said, "They liked it." Then he paused for a moment and admitted that they didn't. "Some hated it. But I like it," he said. 

"Well, remember that we do these for us, not for everyone else. It's nice when they like what we do, but it's more important that we have fun and are creative, just the two of us."

We shared a warm hug and headed into the kitchen to get a snack.

Dukey and Johnny Freaking Out

We forgot to bring back his library book yesterday, but he chose not to pick anything from it.

Instead, he said surely, "Dukey. But this time, freaking out." We had done Dukey from Johnny Test just a few weeks ago.

"I don't want to do something that doesn't look like Dukey," I told him. "Last time you wanted to pick things that didn't look like anything."

He searched and searched and ultimately picked this silly shot of Johnny and Dukey.

As I was working through it, I made several mistakes that I had to cover up. I didn't mean to, but said out loud, "I'm not doing very well."

Later, he looked over the table and said, "You're doing good, Daddy."

It's makes me feel warm inside when he's sweet and encouraging.

When he saw the finished sack, he laughed, "Oooh, he-he." He took a closer look at the reference and asked, "Can you draw the background?"

I looked closer too. All I saw was some green and white. "There's nothing in the background," I said.

"Yeah. It's the hill and the fence."

I had to stare for a long time to see it, but I finally did. I added the arc of the hill but didn't think the rest would work. "I don't think the fence posts will be recognizable. That's all I'm gonna do," I said firmly.

He protested a little, "I know what they are and can recognize them."

"No. I'm done," I insisted.

"Okay," he relented.

Later after school when I pulled the snack sack out of his backpack, I asked him, "What did the kids say about it?"

"A lot of them really liked it," he told me. "Dukey and Johnny freaking out!"

Darth Vader 2

"Another one from the book?"

"Darth Vader."

"Also not really a monster, but at least he's a bad guy," I remarked. I find it so odd that the "Draw 50 Monsters" book has so many non-monsters in it.

"I know," he replied.

I'm surprised that he's been choosing the most familiar characters for me to draw. It'd be nice to draw an actual monster from the book before we have to return it to the school library. I would have picked Medusa today, but I don't get to decide. He does.

I've done Darth Vader before, almost a year ago, but I didn't want to deny him today.

I'm not happy with this one and he didn't make any special comments about it. I drew Vader too thin, just like I did Yoda yesterday. Oh well.

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.