Drawing

When I was younger, I liked He-Man. I mean, I liked a lot of different comics and comic book characters, G.I. Joe and Garfield included, but He-Man was my favorite. Funny enough, my favorite character in the Masters of the Universe franchise (of which He-Man was a part) was She-Ra, He-Man’s twin sister. I remember for one birthday, I had asked for She-Ra’s castle, which was, like, this big, pink Playmobil-like fortress.

At any rate, one after during the time when my interest in He-Man was very high--which is to say, one afternoon in in the late 1980s--my mom and I sat down to draw. I don’t remember what spurred our desire to draw on this particular afternoon, it was just something we decided we'd do. Anyway, I asked my mom at the start of the session if she could draw She-Ra for me. I still wasn’t at the point where I was able to draw well, and I knew my mom was better than I was, so I asked her.

When she was finished, I remember thinking that the drawing was amazing. My mom did the piece in colored pencils and I remember it being this vibrant, lifelike, exciting thing that really did resemble She-Ra, in all her glory.

What struck me, though, was that after my mom finished the drawing, she kept saying that it wasn't that good. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. There I was thinking that this thing, this drawing of She-Ra, was amazing, and all I can remember is my mom saying, “No, it’s really not that good, no." And she meant it! It just made absolutely no sense.

But then again, I was a child.