avocado8

More Drawing

I think I mentioned somewhere (though I can't find it now, so maybe it was just verbally to Al or a friend) that I was dying to see what the Beaner would draw next, but that I didn't want to influence him at all by suggesting that he draw. I especially didn't want to say, "let's draw" and then have him copy what I did; I wanted to see what he'd come up with on his own.

The other day, however, he asked me to draw something, so I drew him. I did as he usually does, and described what I was drawing as I did so. "OK, here's your head... it's kind of squarish. Now I'll put your ears on, and then your eyebrows go here..."

"And my face! Don't forget my face!" [Again, here he means mouth.]

"OK, I'll get to that in a second..."

"And my eyes! Put in my eyes!"

"Right, your eyes go here, under your eyebrows. And here's your nose..."

[Pointing] "And my face goes HERE."

"Right, here's your mouth."

"Is that my hair?"

"Yep. What do you think?"

"It looks like ME!"

On Monday, Jess brought the Beaner back from sharecare, and they played in the living room while I finished up a meeting that ran long. When I came down, the Beaner was drawing. (I should see if I can find that drawing now, come to think of it.) "Oh, cool," I said to Jess, "he's starting to put noses on now." She said, "yes, and EYEBROWS! I couldn't believe it when he insisted that his drawing of a face needed eyebrows when he and M were coloring earlier."

"Ah," I said, "I wondered if that would happen." And I told her about the drawing I'd done of the Beaner. "Right," she said, "he also added ears!" It seems my theory that I would influence him was correct... at least in the short term. I think I did the drawing of him on Saturday night; on Monday afternoon, he still remembered eyebrows, nose, and ears. Today, however, eyebrows and ears seem less important, though nose has stuck around. Two self-portraits that he drew today (and that Aura left for me):

Another drawing tidbit that was interesting to me: After Jess left on Monday, the Beaner and I sat drawing in the living room for a while. I tried another sketch of him; as far as I was concerned, it looked pretty much the same as the one I'd done on Saturday, only larger and in red pencil rather than green crayon. I also didn't walk him through all the anatomical parts as I was drawing them, and I had a bit more room for an upper body than I did when drawing in his handy-dandy notebook. When I was finished, I said, "who's that?", fully expecting him to say, "me!"

"It's Daddy," said the Beaner.