Daffy Duck Stomping on a Genie

"What should we do for the snack sack today?"

"Let me see," he said. He browsed the screenshots on his iPad and picked another snapshot from the cartoon, "Ali Baba Bunny."

"I'll do it, but I wish you could tell that it's a genie." I searched through the other screenshots but there were none with the genie's face visible.

"Look. See. There's the lamp," he said in rebuttal.

"I know, but when I draw it, it won't be as obvious." He didn't seem to care. "I'll do it if you want," I told him. So for the 6th time, I drew a still from, "Ali Baba Bunny." Here, Daffy is upset by the appearance of the genie. He stuffs him back into the magic lamp, fearing the genie wants to steal his found treasure. It was pretty easy to draw and I always enjoy drawing Daffy. He's such a character.

"What do you think?" I asked Victor when I finished.

"Yeah, that's good, but the Daffy is messed up a little bit."

He was right. I'd messed up on the mouth just a little bit. He's always so observant!

A Skeleton Popping Out of a Graveyard

Last night he asked me, "Dad, tomorrow can you do a skeleton popping out of a graveyard?"

"Yeah, sure! Why do you want that?"

"Because I'm making one for a friend."

"You mean you're going to draw that for somebody."

"No, you are."

"Oh, someone asked for it?"

"Yeah."

"Someone in your class?"

"No."

"Someone from your after school program?"

"Yeah."

This morning I ran a search for a skeleton popping out of a graveyard just like he asked. I knew which one I wanted to do and I knew which one he would pick. I don't usually tell him which one to pick, but I did today. He liked it but, of course, he scrolled and picked the other one.

"This one looks easy. It's just the skeleton head and a hand reaching out."

It was, in fact, very complex. It was mostly black and looked like a charcoal drawing. "That doesn't look easy at all."

"Okay," he said. Fortunately, he let me draw the one I picked.

We were up early and I didn't have to make lunch today. I had plenty of time and finished relatively quickly. I was amazingly done early, something that rarely happens. It was a nice feeling not to have to rush for a change.

After having shown off the Bugs Bunny at Pismo Beach snack sack from yesterday, he was excited to bring in old snack sacks to school today. When he woke up he told me he had taken out the ones he wanted to take. He had a mess of sacks on the floor. He grabbed a random armful of snack sacks and started to head out of his room.

"That's too many," I told him. "I thought you were picking out your favorites."

The next thing I knew he had put them all away. "I decided not to take any today."

"Why?"

"Because I have to go over 300 snack sacks to pick my favorites again."

I wanted to press him to pick a few but decided to just let him go play. We're rarely done with breakfast early, so I knew he'd relish the opportunity to just mess around at home before school. I did feel a bit sad and responsible for bursting his bubble, though. I sighed as he ran to his play room. I'm sure he'll bring a stash of snack sacks in soon, especially as the artwork draws more attention.

When I picked him up after school, I asked, "Did you give the snack sack to your friend?"

"Yup."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'Oh my god! That is sick! Oh my god! Your dad is the best drawer ever!'"

Bugs Bunny at Pismo Beach

Today he picked another screenshot from, "Ali Baba Bunny." I'd guess he took about fifty snapshots from this one cartoon. I suppose he's taking us through the major scenes in order. This one is toward the end.

"Is that really what Pismo Beach looks like?" he asked me.

"I'm not sure. I've been there, but I don't remember."

I got to work and tried my best to pay attention to all the little details of this scene. I was a bit disappointed that Bugs's head is turned, but I'm too much of a stickler to alter the reference. That, and I'm still not very confident making any real changes to what I'm looking at.

When he saw it finished, he yelled, "Whoa! That's good!"

When I picked him up after school, he was excitedly showing off the snack sack. When he saw me, he came right up to me and waved the snack sack in front of my face. He said, "People were like, 'Whoa! Whaa-!?!'"

He waved the sack in front of one of the leaders of his after school program. "What's that? Did you draw that?" she asked.

"No, this guy did," he said, point at me with his thumb. "My Dad!" he added proudly.

"Oh! Wow, that's cool! Are you an artist?" she asked.

"Not really. It's just something we started back in Kindergarten," I explained. I pulled out my iPhone and showed her the album of all the snack sacks we've drawn. I gave her the run down of how we got started.

She was impressed and visibly excited. "That's really cool! He's gonna look back and think, I had the coolest Dad in the world."

That made me smile.

Victor continued to show it off to the other people in the room. He came back up to me. "My teacher said it's okay for you to come in!" he blurted out.

"Oh, you finally showed her your snack sack today?"

"Yeah."

"And did you show it to the other kids in your class?"

"Yeah, a lot of people were so surprised. They were like, 'Whoa! Your Dad did this?'"

I guess I need to start thinking about what I want to do for the classroom drawing session this year. It will be fun sharing our project with the kids in his class at this new school.

Daffy Duck Hugging a Pearl

"What are we gonna do today? It's got to be easy because I don't have a lot of time."

He browsed through his collection of Looney Tunes screenshots again. "Got it!" he shouted.

This one looked easy enough and I always enjoy drawing Daffy. It's yet another snapshot from the cartoon, "Ali Baba Bunny." Here, Daffy has been miniaturized by a genie after having desecrated the spirit of the magic lamp. He follows Bugs's rabbit hole to Pismo Beach and grabs hold of this pearl. This is the fourth still we've done from that cartoon. We've done Bugs and Daffy in a cave full of treasure, Daffy popping out of Bug Bunny's head, and Daffy Duck Swimming in Treasure.

It didn't take me too long to finish. Victor looked over at it and asked, "What's he holding?"

"A pearl."

"We've never found a pearl."

"No, huh." We've never been anywhere near a real clam shell, I thought.

"Dad, would you want to be shrunk and find a pearl?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't want to be shrunk."

He considered the thought, but made no comment. I suspect he'd be just fine being shrunk, especially if he could hug a pearl and yell, "It's mine! It's mine! All mine!"

Daffy Duck Swimming in Treasure

"What should we do today?"

"This one," he said, pointing to another Looney Tunes screenshot on his iPad.

I was excited to do it the moment I saw it. It's another snapshot from the cartoon, "Ali Baba Bunny." This is the third still from that same cartoon. We did Bugs and Daffy in a cave full of treasure a couple of days ago, then Daffy popping out of Bug Bunny's head yesterday.

I drew Daffy quickly, then I got to work on the coins. I had visions of filling the entire snack sack with coins. I knew it would take a long time, but I underestimated just how long. The minutes slipped by and progress was slow.

As soon as he'd finished breakfast, I asked, "Do you want to help me?" hoping he'd say, "Yes." I continued, "You could do that side and I can do this side."

"Sure," he said.

I reached for another Sharpie and handed it to him. "But don't press too hard," I reminded him. "See how I do it?" I drew a few coins to demonstrate. "I don't hardly press down at all."

He drew a few of his own coins. "It's hard not to press down," he admitted.

"No it's not. Just try," I said, trying to encourage him. I swished out several more coins. He did the same.

A minute hadn't passed before he said, "I'm tired." He said this after having drawn about 20 coins. I didn't expect much from him so this wasn't a surprise; but, I was hoping to get more production out of him. "You're too good," he said. The compliment was meant to deflect any attempt to convince him to continue. He put down the Sharpie and went to go mess around.

I worked fast and furiously to add as many coins as time would allow. I worked well past our normal leaving time, but ultimately had to call it quits. I may not have reached my goal to cover the entire sack, but there are a lot of coins here and it does look pretty cool.

He agreed. "It looks awesome!" he shouted when he saw it.

Daffy Popping Out of Bug Bunny's Head

"What's for the snack today?" I asked. I expected this to be another day for a Looney Tunes still. It was.

He scanned the screenshots on his iPad and picked. "This one. It's Daffy popping out of Bugs Bunny's head."

With a description like that, I knew it'd be a fun one. It's another screenshot from the cartoon, "Ali Baba Bunny." We did Bugs and Daffy in a cave full of treasure from the same cartoon a couple of days ago.

We stayed pretty independent today. We sat mostly in silence as he ate his breakfast and I worked on the snack sack. He finished eating, then brushed his teeth. He passed by several times but didn't take notice of my progress.

He didn't see it until we were headed out the door. I left it on the bench by his backpack so he'd see it before we left. He laughed hard out loud. "Ha-ha-ha-ha! I like it. It's funny!"

I agreed. Actually, the entire cartoon is funny. I can see why he likes it so much.

Looney Tunes Cat Shrugging

The plan was to walk to school this morning. Since I knew it would take an extra 20-30 minutes, I got up early. I prepped his lunch and made his breakfast before I woke him up.

"Good morning!" I said gently as I walked into his room. He struggled to open his eyes. After some shakes and some hugs, he sat up. I wanted to get a jumpstart on the drawing, so I brought the iPad with me to his room. This entire week he's been selecting screenshots from Looney Tunes cartoons. I figured he could do the same again today. "Can you quickly pick something from the iPad for the snack sack?" I asked him. He selected a few screenshots that weren't really appropriate. A couple were violent and a few others were odd stills that didn't look like much out of context. He finally picked this cat.

I urged Victor to get ready quickly and got to work drawing right away. After about five minutes, I heard noises upstairs, but he wasn't down yet. I went to check up on him and found him playing with some toys at his bedside, something he never does in the morning. I reprimanded him and asked him to, "...please hurry up." He knew we needed to leave early today, so I'm not sure why he chose to mess around. It's like he times his insubordination for maximum frustration.

I looked it up and this cat is a precursor to Sylvester. He chases and is abused by an early Tweety Bird in the cartoon, "Birdy and the Beast." This shrug comes as a gesture to the audience just before the cat drops to the ground from a great height. When he hits the ground hard, Tweety says, "Aw, the poor kitty tat! He fall down and go...BOOM!" It's a scene Victor's watched countless times. We drew Tweety from this same cartoon when we did Tweety Bird Yelling, "BOOM!" toward the end of the last school year.

This drawing took longer than expected as do all of the ones with black filler and negative space. It was hard to keep the "white" lines exposed for creases and definition, especially those of his eyes and whiskers. The cat's feet don't show in the screenshot or at all in this segment of the cartoon, so I merely drew a bottom border line.

When I was done, Victor didn't say anything but he did shrug in a pleasant way, mimicking the cat.

I was trying to get us out the door, but he refused to get ready. Instead, he sat messing around on our electric piano. When I asked him to get ready he said, "Okay," but continued at the piano with no intention of moving. My patience was wearing thin. I told him he'd lost the use of his electronics for the rest of the day. He's been in trouble all week, so I had him on a short leash. Once I said that, he jumped into immediate action. He was a model kid for two full minutes, getting ready faster than ever before.

"What do you think?" I asked him about the snack sack on our way out.

"Good," is all he said. I could tell he was sore with me.

We left almost ten minutes later than I had planned, but we made it to school just on time. I do love walking with him. He held my hand most of the way which made me feel so special. I miss our morning walks to school. For three years before he started at this new school we walked together nearly every day. His previous school was much closer. Perhaps we'll walk from time to time, but I'm not sure. It's certainly doable, but it is a pretty long walk...and not as fun for me to walk back by myself.

When he came home he said, "Hey Dad, do you know where the snack sack is?"

"No," I replied, unsure of what he was getting at. I went over to the bench. "I don't see it in your backpack."

"It's not in my backpack," he said at the same time. "I didn't see it there. Oh, I might have lost it!" he said with distress. "If I did lose it, I'm really sorry, Dadda."

"It's okay," I said. At this point, we both want to preserve each and every one of the snack sacks. We have the pictures, of course, but the sacks themselves represent something very special to us, something we want to keep and display for years to come.

Bugs and Daffy in a Cave Full of Treasure

This morning, Victor woke up before I did. He came to find me in my bed and jumped on top of me. We chatted about this and that for several minutes before we decided to get up. Often when he's on restriction, like he still is today, he's extra sweet. Partly it's because he's on his best behavior, but partly I think it's because he has fewer external distractions. Without the TV, the iPad, or the computer, he puts his entire attention on Mom and Dad. I like it.

As soon as we got downstairs, he went to his iPad to find another Looney Tunes screenshot for today's snack sack. "Can you do this one?" he asked me.

"Um, you won't be able to tell what it is. I'm not even sure what it is," I told him. It looked like something from outer space. He didn't explain it. I still have no idea what it was, what cartoon it was from, why he'd saved it in a screenshot, or why he wanted me to draw it on a snack sack.

He browsed some more and showed me a picture of Elmer Fudd shooting himself in the face. The screenshot consisted of his body, a puff of smoke in place of his head, and his arm holding a revolver. "How about this?" he asked.

"That's not appropriate for school," I told him.

"Why not? It's just a cartoon."

"That's not appropriate for school and you know that," I repeated. I haven't shared with him any of the tragic stories about school violence, but he generally understands that violence and weapons are no laughing matter at school.

"Okay," he said and went back to browsing. He picked a snapshot of a cartoon car, with a silly screaming face on it, falling from the sky. Much of the car was not in frame so I told him I didn't want to do it. He thought he could find a better still, one with the entire car in it, but he couldn't find any in his set. In fact, many of the screenshots he's captured have incomplete views of the characters. He finally picked this snapshot of Bugs and Daffy in, "Ali Baba Bunny." He asked me, "Can you do this?"

"Sure."

"You can do it!? Yay!" he shouted with genuine enthusiasm and, I believe, some relief.

This one took a long time. It wasn't easy drawing all that treasure, but I was committed to filling it all in. Meanwhile, he'd finished his breakfast and brushed his teeth.

"Where's the snack sack?" he asked from around the corner. "Ooo!" he said as soon as he saw it. "It's awesome!"

When he came home that afternoon, I found the sack all crumpled up in his backpack. "Did you show this one to your friends?" I asked him.

"Yeah! They said, 'Wow! He is good!'"

Red Hot Ryder

He woke up late this morning. He tends to do that when he's been in trouble the night before. Being on restriction, he realizes that he has no reason to get up any earlier than he has to. He lost use of his iPad and all electronics for reasons I won't get into here.

As he did for the past couple of school days with Bugs Bunny and Leo the Lion, he went to his iPad to choose a Looney Tunes still. He picked this shot of Red Hot Ryder from the cartoon, "Buckaroo Bugs." I think it's funny that the narrator introduces Red Hot Ryder as "Brooklyn's famous fighting cowboy." Victor has watched this cartoon countless times and loves the dialog in it, usually replaying certain phrases over and over and over again. In this snapshot, Red Hot Ryder is about to give his horse a wallop to get it to stop. He had pleaded with the horse and asked it repeatedly to, "whoa," but it just kept galloping on, leaving him with this obvious course of action.

I took to task and finished pretty quickly. I'd intended to draw it smaller and include his whole hat and the entire club. Instead, I unintentionally drew it with the scale and proportions that match the snapshot exactly. His hat and the club are clipped in the screenshot just as in my drawing. I definitely enjoy drawing these cartoon scenes. It would appear from the plethora of screenshots Victor's saved on his iPad that I might be doing many more in the coming days and weeks.

We didn't speak much this morning. I could tell he was a little sore about being on restriction. We didn't have much time for chit-chat anyway. He went through the routine more smoothly than normal -- one benefit of him looking to be on his best behavior to earn his privileges back.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"Looks pretty much the same," he replied. It may not seem like much, but that was actually a high compliment considering how critical he can be sometimes.

It's interesting now that he uses his iPad at school because I no longer have control of what he does with it during the day. I did, however, explicitly tell him that I didn't want him using it before school which he had done last week.

So far, I've parked and stuck around at the school until his teacher opens her door. He hasn't yet told me not to stay, but he has made it clear, on account of him ditching me once we get to the stairs, that he doesn't want me to be too near. Oh, how things have changed from the days in Kindergarten and Pre-K when he wouldn't leave my side. I've kept my distance, respecting his space, but I stay because I relish the opportunity to watch him interact with the other kids.

On the second day of school, he took out his iPad and found a shady spot to sit down. I looked across the playground and wondered why he wasn't running around or playing with any of the other kids. It was a warm morning. I found myself wishing he was releasing energy in the sunshine instead of sitting down, all by himself, in the shade. It made me worry about his future at this school and the challenges of finding new friends.

The playground was full, as was the blacktop, with kids running, jumping, climbing, and sliding. Several kids near the buildings were chatting and being silly in groups or in pairs. There were many other kids on their devices too. He wasn't the only one. Most of them were by themselves, independently typing or tapping away. I wondered how he'd make friends if he just kept to himself with his focus locked onto the screen of his iPad. Was this the future of school playgrounds? Was he avoiding the challenges of making new friends in a new school? I stared out across the field, then at the kids playing basketball, then at the ones on the play structure.

I looked back to find Victor and was surprised to see a crowd of kids around him. Some were sitting by his side; others stood looking over his shoulder. There was one kid standing directly in front of him looking upside down at his screen. I was pretty sure he was building something new in one of his Minecraft worlds. Clearly the other kids were excited about it. I thought the access to technology was making him antisocial; but, as it turns out, it was the iPad and Minecraft that drew in the others. I only recognized one of the other kids, so it was clear that these were new friends he was making.

Later that evening, he confirmed it. "Today I made new friends, Daddy. They like Minecraft," he told me. He listed out their names. That made me very happy. Now I know he'll be alright. Things may be a little different at this new school, but the future looks bright on all accounts.

Bug-eyed Bugs Bunny Freaking Out

"I need to know what to do for the snack sack because I don't have a lot of time." We were running very late today.

"Okay, let me see." He grabbed his iPad mini and began scanning the hundreds of Looney Tunes related screenshots he captured over the summer. Yesterday we did Leo the Lion. "It's easy. It's just Bugs Bunny's face." He studied it and added, "If you want, I can pick and easier one."

I took a look at it and said, "It's okay, I think I can do this one." It was actually a still from the half live-action, half cartoon movie, "Looney Tunes: Back in Action."

These types of silly expressions are one of my favorite things about older style cartoons like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and the like. These funny faces always made me laugh as a kid because they are such outrageous exaggerations. Having said that, I'm not particularly fond of drawing them out of context. There have been many other times I've declined, but today, I had no time to be choosy.

I sat down and made quick work of it. After being feverish for the past couple of days, it was nice to be able to concentrate better with a less cloudy head. In the snapshot, his mouth was cropped in the frame. I didn't want to draw it like that, so I drew in what I expected Bugs's lower lip to look like.

When he saw the finished drawing, he smiled. Then he said, "I'm going to color in the mouth and the tongue and the..." He trailed off.

I thought he meant later, but he picked out a Sharpie from the drawer and began coloring in the back of Bugs's throat. I was nervous that he'd color outside the lines, but he was pretty careful as he filled it in.

He saw the look of concern on my face and asked, "Do you have that look on your face because I took one of your Sharpies?"

I ignored the question. "We really don't have any more time Victor. We've got to go." It was true. We had to get going.

He finished up and I quickly fixed the outlines to keep the edges looking smooth. He looked at it and smiled one last time before he slid it into his backpack.