Trollhunters’ Galadrigal Brothers

Old Troll Bros:

Our younger son had an bit of an upper respiratory thing that made it arguably necessary for him to stay home from school last Monday...which allowed him to watch a whole lot of Trollhunters on Netflix. 

Since he has aged a bit out of the “Mom has to sit next to me on the couch and watch every thing with me, preferably while giving me a foot rub or a back rub” model, (though that doesn’t mean he won’t ask anyway...repeatedly) I saw very little of this Trollhunters show myself. 

But I did notice that one of the main troll characters is voiced by Kelsey Grammer (known only to our kids for his Sideshow Bobness) and that his often antagonistic brother is voiced by the more-relevant-to-adolescent-boys Mark Hamill.

My younger son observed me drawing this napkin back on September 25th, which was, coincidentally, Mr. Hamill’s birthday. He remarked, “it seems like more people are posting things today for Mark Hamill’s birthday because he is getting SO old.” ... 

Dramatic pause...then the inevitable follow up question: 

“Wait, Mom, is he as old as you are?” 

My son was dubious that it was possible that I could be younger. I pointed out that I was a child when the original Star Wars movie was released, and while Mr. Hamill was a young man at the time, he was clearly not in grammer school.

Remarkably, I am also younger than Sideshow Bob. 

Laughing Skull

I’ll be entering your dreams tonight in the form of a laughing skull:

Our younger son very much enjoyed Matt Groening’s “Disenchantment” on Netflix. This was not exactly a surprise as he has watched much more of “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” than is appropriate for his age. Most of his cultural and historical references seem to have been filtered through one or the other of those two shows.

Disenchantment definitely works a similar vein of dark humor. The above quote comes from Luci, the personal demon of the show’s main character.

Luci is most often mistaken for a cat, not a dog, and we never get to see the skull, so this napkin is a bit of a departure.

But I figured if I were going to draw a dream skull, it might as well be on a cute dog.

The result, however.... definitely not so cute.

End of Summer Napkin Portrait

Mother and (Absent) Sons:

Posing for the napkin portrait for this year was slightly less compelling than various other screen based activities.

I might have anticipated this as the kids would have barely appeared beyond the edges of the napkin...but I was hoping to have some hair protruding on either side.

Maybe next year...

Ha.

(Somehow I neglected to post this one and a few others earlier this month, so my apologies for the time lag)

Napkin Self Portrait

Dysfunctional Napkin Selfie:

I try to do napkin portraits of myself & kids at the end of the summer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about portraits generally

...and how things that don’t quite work can be more interesting than a “good” likeness- 

particularly when it comes to my own geriatric face