My Son the Artist... Part I

Harvey has something on stick figure humor today and a link to a very funny stick figure cartoon created by Frank J of IMAO, which of course reminded me of a couple stories. I have also come to realize from Frank’s stick figure cartoon, that the stick figure art I have in this home is not a phase. I gather from Harvey’s comments and Frank’s drawing, that this is something that will be in my life… forever. And it is very funny, so I’m cool with it. This is part one of a two part series.

Son #1 was in 1st grade and he loved to draw. He didn’t care much about the detail, but cared more about what was happening in the picture. Day after day, I would receive picture after picture of stick figures, being eaten by sea serpents. They would be sitting on a boat deck and suddenly get eaten. Or there would be 10 – 20 of them holding hands on the bottom of the ocean and a great three (3) headed serpent would swoop down and eat them. It was graphic, for stick figure art. There was a lot of dismemberment with swirly blood floating in the ocean. The line of stick figures in the water? Oh some would be missing heads, while others were eaten in half. There were stick bodies floating in the water. It was funny in a sick way, but I kept waiting for his teacher to send us to group counseling as a family. Surely she thought something was seriously wrong with us.

One day I opened his backpack and there was this picture of a little girl, in two-dimension, she wasn’t a stick figure, holding a heart balloon, blue birds are flying, there’s a rainbow, love love love, life is good. I looked at Son #1 and said, “Hey, did you draw this?”, while quietly smirking to myself. Indignantly he yelled, “HEY! That’s not mine!” No kidding. The next day I get in carpool pick up and as he gets in the car I yell over to his teacher. She walks over and I tell her I have a piece of artwork that I think is not ours. I pull it out; she looks at it and smiles and says, “Oh! This DEFINITELY is NOT yours!” and starts to laugh. I replied, “I’ve been waiting for you to send us to family counseling” and she laughed again and said, “Why? You have a boy?” I loved his teacher!