Son and Father

From RICHARD ART

Someday The Kid will be a famous artist, and I will tell everyone, "I changed his diapers."

Not that that's the extent of my involvement in his life. I can boast any number of other fatherly entanglements with my son and perhaps even show some influence on his development. But his art is his own. I'd say "God given" if I were a Christian. As a Buddhist, I shrug my shoulders and wonder where he came from.

The most I can say about my influence on his art is that I stayed out of his way.

My wife and I encouraged Richard to take art classes. He has always had talent. He painted a pair of colorful birds in kindergarten that had all of the teachers buzzing. His first oil painting was amazing.

More important, and something I see as Richard's real talent, is his ability to imagine what he wants to do and then execute it, an artistic hand-eye coordination that really is amazing.

From Richard Art -- Son & Father

On Sunday Richard asked me to sit for him while he sketched my portrait in charcoal. He's taking a drawing class at American River College. He's drawn three or four self-portraits for the class. (Examples are in this collection of his art.) This week's assignment was to draw someone else.

I sat in bed. For lighting, Richard had me watch TV on my computer with all of the other lights off except for a closet light that provided enough illumination for Richard to see his drawing table.

So I sat and watched the final episode of Dollhouse on Hulu. I love the show's writing. I love the discussions of right and wrong when it comes to playing -- literally -- with people's minds.

After that 45 minutes, Richard said he needed more time. So I watched Lie to Me on Hulu. When my fulltime job in Oakland got cut back to half-time, we dropped cable as a cost-cutting move. I miss weekend soccer games, but not much else. Hulu's archive of current and past programs is more than enough for my limited television tastes.

When Lie to Me finished, I asked Richard, "Now?"

"No," he said. So I watched another Lie to Me. The show is not bad. It certainly held my interest while I attempted to keep my head still and my eyes fixed on the computer screen.

When the second Lie to Me finished, Richard refused to quit, and now I had his mother telling me to be still. She came in and snapped the photo above of Richard drawing. At that point, I had no idea what the drawing looked like.

So I watched the two pilot episodes for Stargate Universe. When we had cable I watched Stargate Atlantis some. It was OK. Unfortunately, this new show suffers from some pretty awful writing that is made worse by lackadaisical acting.

My butt was sore and my eyes hurt by the time Richard finally finished. When I saw the drawing for the first time I was really very impressed.

From Richard Art -- Son & Father

In January of last year, Richard did a pen and watercolor drawing for his high school art class. Here are the two side by side. The advancement of his skill in less than two years is amazing.