Budding artistes

Boy 1 has loved crayons and paper for a good two-and-a-half years, and his style and control are really developing now. Boy 2 is still mainly in the "crayons as food" category, but even he has made significant strides lately.

A few weeks ago, Boy 1 spent some time working a rather elaborate picture of a flower. He made the flower mostly red and added a few other colors to the petals. He was careful about filling in the color of the stem and leaves exactly inside the lines. Then he added a bright sun overhead. He narrated all these elements as he worked. Just when it looked like the picture was done, he said, "And now it's night." And he very carefully and deliberately took a black crayon and blotted out the entire picture. Simultaneously hilarious and tragic result:

Boy 1's current fixations are the character Wall-E and--of course, since we've been talking it up--Hallowe'en. Boy 1 told us yesterday that Wall-E dressed up for Hallowe'en in a duck costume:

Boy 1 also likes to draw what he calls "faminies." For some reason, either the house or a family member or two in each of Boy 1's pictures always wears a look of sheer horror that cracks us up:

Up until about three months ago, frenzied dots and slashes were the entire extent of Boy 2's drawing attempts. He didn't have much attention span for that close work, either. On the rare occasion he sat at the table long enough to draw, Boy 2 wouldn't try to do it himself, instead watching someone ELSE draw as he gave directives: "Make a giraffe. Blue giraffe. OK, 'nother giraffe, red giraffe."

Now suddenly he has both an interest and a bit more ability. He's gone from just jabbing boisterously at the paper with crayons (or taking big bites of them) to making bold swirls, lines, and loops. Most of his recent work is similar to this:

(That's Boy 1's work in the background, in purple, with Boy 2's multicolored work in the foreground.)

But every once in a while, Boy 2 comes up with something that shows he's really beginning to get it. Here's his "o-ange airpane":

OK, so it's not quite ready for flight. But I can totally see a basic airplane shape in that, no?

Still, Boy 2 is a much more physical and tactile child than the cerebral Boy 1. He doesn't sit for long periods consumed with drawing. He's more at home building with crayons than drawing with them.

Hmm, future in architecture, perhaps?