The Wholly Inaccurate Valentine

So I discovered the perfect Valentine's Day gift for my wife. When I ordered it, though, the site indicated that I was way late to receive it in time for the holiday. Undaunted, I made that my idea for the holiday card. Inside, I wrote "Cupid: Great at inspiring men to lifelong love. Not so good at getting them to order mail on time."

However, by the time that was all finished, not only had the present come in the mail but she had opened it! Since I wasn't expecting it, I hadn't warned her off any packages. In other words, it not only got there on time, she saw it even earlier. Hence the completely wrong Valentine, without time to draw a different one!

New Sketchbook 3: the other daughter's request

My oldest daughter wanted me to draw a picture of her. I like doing that – she's old enough to sit still, and I get practice doing faces.

With this one, it looks like her – three years ago. I guess parents really do think of their children as little, even when they're still little. Either that, or my ability to shave years off a subject when drawing them means I will have an incredibly lucrative portrait business.

New Sketchbook 2: a son's request

The kids have pillow pets – if you don't have kids, you may not have heard of them. If you do, you've probably heard (like us) the theme song sung repeatedly: "It's a pillow! It's a pet! It's a PILLOW PET!" All three kids have one.

Gavin's is a bee, so he asked me to draw a picture of him as a bee. But then he said to add a beehive. Then honey pots. The guy knows what he wants in a drawing.

I offered to color it for him, but he said he wanted it as a coloring page. So I decided to not only oblige him, but see if I could make a downloadable coloring page for the site. Here it is, and maybe this will be the first in a series of coloring pages – especially if they keep giving me requests!

One other thing – after I drew it, I remembered from a while back that Bee Movie had the main character in a turtleneck. Just to make sure, I looked it up – he does wear one, but they look quite different. I thought about changing it anyway, except that we live in New England. I haven't seen Gavin without a turtleneck in months, so it was only natural to draw him that way.