The Drawing Battle

© shoutingforha

The boy loves to draw. As a little fellow, he would spend hours perched in his chair at the kitchen table working on one masterpiece or another. I have a large box filled to the top with just a fraction of his various artistic endeavors.

My favorite pieces are framed and proudly displayed on one of the walls in our home.
The boy insists on keeping most of the drawings for himself (he's a bit of a pack rat), but will occasionally draw something special to send to a friend or family member. He once drew an entire series of forest fire pictures for my sister and her hubby. Ironically, they live in the mountains of Colorado where forest fires are a real possibility.

© shoutingforha

The boy's subjects have been quite varied over the years. They range from stick figure sketches of me riding the lawnmower to still life drawings of a bowl of fruit. As the boy has grown older, his artistic focus has shifted to scenes of jets, planes or war. The child is 100% boy.

At the age of five, the boy came up with a great idea... He and I would draw something together. We would create two armies of crazy-shaped ships and then have a battle right there on the sheet of paper.

© shoutingforha

We've been doing drawing battles ever since.

My boy's ships are designed to be weapons of mass carnage. They are usually insanely detailed and have numerous guns and cannons that are used to blast the enemy from the sky. Cue his sinister laugh.

© shoutingforha

By contrast, my ships are quite cartoonish. I prefer to use common, everyday items as my inspiration... things like a hat, cactus, human hand or a star.

We always begin by drawing our ships using pencil, Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils if you must know. Once a sufficient army is assembled, we color the ships using colored pencils. An outline of black sharpie completes the picture.

Now for the fun part... 

© shoutingforha

The boy assigns a single color to each army, usually red and green. As the shots are fired, we draw laser and cannon blasts exiting one ship, and the corresponding explosions as they hit their target.

In the boy's opinion, making sound effects really helps with the enjoyment of the drawing battle. I have to agree.

© shoutingforha

We continue our battle until there is just one ship left standing. It is then time to sit back and look at our creation, discussing which ships were especially cool, crazy, or destructive. If I am lucky, I sneak the completed picture into my box for safekeeping.

I'm sure it won't be long before our drawing battles become a thing of the past. Until that time, I am going to savor every last colored pencil laser beam and explosion possible. I know I will miss them when they are gone.