Drawing the Line

David John is drawing up a storm these days. This is great news, since he went through a long phase in which he wouldn't draw anything because he felt he couldn't do it perfectly. In my opinion, his drawings are perfect- the epitome of children's art. My only complaint, is that he doesn't always keep his art confined to paper.

I found this on a wall in our house. I called David John over when I discovered it. "Look, David John," I said "do you know anything about this?" "Oh, yeah. That looks like a purple minion." "Yeah, it looks like a purple minion that you drew." "No. Well, I didn't draw it today."

My older boys love to draw too, so I checked out some books from the library about drawing monsters and dinosaurs and robots. David John and Benjamin begged me to draw robots for them to color. They insisted on minute details so that would look "really cool". I thought I did a pretty good job.

I got a little discouraged, though, when I saw that all those details were colored entirely with black. It must be very depressing to be the artist for a children's coloring book. It makes we want to buy a coloring book, carefully shade in every picture with painstaking detail and then mail it to the artist to show her that SOMEONE appreciated all her hard work.

Benjamin is just starting to draw. I always ask him to tell me about his pictures because I don't want to guess incorrectly about what he drew. Sometimes, though, his explanations just add to my confusion. When I asked about this picture, the answer he gave was almost poetic.

"Some people bite lions.
Some people no.
Lions do bite people."
If anyone has an interpretation for me, I'd love to hear it. I can't help but think that there is some deeper meaning hidden in both picture and words.

This is one of my recent favorite David John originals. It's a Daddy alligator with two babies. They are going into the water. I am also proud that my little David John is writing his own name. His favorite part is putting the dot on his "i".

I mean, really, does it get much cuter than that? It's almost a shame I can't let him decorate our walls, but you have to draw the line somewhere.