Charlie

His earliest work was simple, but very abstract-looking. With lines and blobs, somehow, it made sense to this formalist mom. I could be biased, but I saw his potential and just let him go to develop his own style. From rolled-out paper on the floor to paper plates, he just kept making lines. Lines soon formed into simple images, with legs, feet, a face, and the cherry on top - sharp teeth! His monsters have now been perfected! Each one has its own name and style.

Charlie's inspiration is surely his imagination. He may get some insight from watching YouTube videos of monster-like video game playthroughs, but his monsters are his own. In addition, I work from home and design computer graphics. He jumps on after hours with me to create images using clip art (mostly monsters), text features, and animated clips. Instead of coloring books, he has a good supply of sketch pads and drawing kits; always at arm's reach.

No matter what he is doing or where we go, he has paper, pens, markers, Play-Doh, and a smile. Not a tablet or iPad in sight. Recently, he has sharpened his sculpting skills. With my help, we take step-by-step pics of his Play-Doh monsters and export them into animated gifs. For show and tell in first grade, he showed his friends how to shape and move the dough to capture movement. He now prefers sculpting with aluminum foil and his favorite media - the 3D Doodler.