Art a la Carte Plus

Today was Eric's monthly Art a la Carte class. I was on call last night so I could have the day off today, and since it's also the day before his birthday, we did some other special things. The class today was about the artist Robert Wyland, who is best known for painting large outdoor murals of whales and other ocean life. Today's project involved using oil pastels to draw turtles.

They started with a pencil drawing to get the proportion of the shell over most of the page and then leave room for the head and part of the flippers. They then colored in the turtle using colored oil pastels. Mrs. R described a technique to use two colors of the oil pastels to make the shell look more three dimensional. The last part was outlining everything in black and adding the scales.

I've been volunteering for Eric's art classes for a couple of years now, and it still amazes me that there are kids (usually girls) who are so concerned with making their artwork look a certain way (usually they want it to look exactly like the teacher's example), that they have trouble doing the project. I was trying to help one girl who kept erasing and erasing that she wasn't really drawing anything. She was so frustrated that she had to put her head down. Another girl asked me to draw the turtle's head for her. I refused, of course, because this is supposed to be her project. Eric doesn't often do his art like I would do it or even the way I wish he would do it, but I let him do it his way. He has more fun that way and in the end, the result is all his.

I brought Eric his usual lunch from Wendy's--eight pieces of their Spicy Chicken Nuggets and a small Frosty. This time it was a chocolate Frosty instead of the usual vanilla. On Art a la Carte days, art class is at 8:40am. I help clean up after class, so I don't leave until around 10am. I only have a little time at home before I have to leave to get his lunch. Lunch is at 11:25am. I rarely stay more than 20 minutes since he is ready to rejoin his friends after finishing his lunch. For some reason, he took a little longer to eat today, and I didn't leave until 11:50. Maybe it was the selfie I took of the two of us, or maybe it was the trailer for the new Star Wars movie coming out in December called Rogue One that I showed him, but either way, I got to spend an extra five minutes with my not so baby boy.

I would have then had to go pick up his birthday doughnut cake from Krispy Kreme, but Patrick picked it up for me and brought it home. Some of the school staff that saw me bring this in thought it was a great idea. I had to agree.

When I arrived at Eric's school, his class was in the gym with the rest of the school, so I put the doughnut cake on his desk and took some pictures. He got a "special birthday gift" from the school, which included this plastic chair cover that said "Happy Birthday". He apparently also got a pencil and something about Chili's the restaurant (maybe a coupon? I haven't checked his backpack yet).

Eric's classmates were excited when they saw the doughnut cake. They sang "Happy Birthday" to him, then his teacher and I distributed the doughnuts. It worked out that the kids got the type of doughnut they wanted--glazed or chocolate iced. There were three dozen total, half of each type, and enough for each child to have two. Many of the kids asked if they could have seconds. At first, Mrs. S said that we would probably want to take the rest home to feed the rest of the family, but I didn't really want to have that many to tempt me, so I said "Yes!" A Not all the kids had two, but at least one said "I should never have two doughnuts again." Even Eric said he started to feel a little ill after having two, and this is the child who had three last Sunday when we went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast. Regardless, I got rid of most of the doughnuts. The rest of them went with Alex when he went to his friend's house to watch movies tonight.

Tomorrow is Eric's actual birthday. We're planning on visiting my cousin Rachael, who just moved to Austin. I'll definitely take some photos and share them here. I can't believe Eric is already going to be 9 years old!