Portrait of the artist as a young man

I remember the days of trying to get bubs to just hold a marker. Trying to coax out a line. He had a short lived love affair with balloons and he would fill up the page with perfectly drawn ovals with little triangles on the bottom of them, with a line coming out of it. It was really an anomaly though, because he never really cared to draw anything after that.
They have a drawing program for bubs at school. I never expected more than some improvement in the fine motor skills though because as an art teacher, I found the 'roteness' of it kind of creatively stifling. I continued to give bubs a wide variety of art materials at home and I let him hold his markers however he wanted, in whatever hand he wanted, grip of choice. I just wanted him to enjoy the process.
So now, he has managed to merge his new found skills of line making, with his wonderful amazing thought process. I have watched him drawing the last couple of days. He will sit and make these thoughtful elaborate undersea scenes. The drawings are really detailed and you can actually tell what he is trying to make. Then he will color in his creations, which kind of renders them shapeless blobs. This is where my love of process comes in- as an art teacher of young children, I never felt that the final product was indicative of the process, of the heart and soul they put into it. I was never one for that perfect cookie cutter holiday project. Even now, when I get them home, they are void of any kind of spirit. I think they are good for direction following, and can reinforce curriculum, but creativity, no.
Ok, I am rambling now. My point was to show off bubs' latest creation. It is an ocean scene, note the blue border around the page. The orange on the bottom is the sand. The white shape to the lower left is a giant clam. Can you see the scallopy line indicating the 'mouth' of the clam? The vertical green lines are the sea grass, the orange squiggle on the top left is a sea horse, can you sea the spiral tail? The two large green horizontal 'blobs' are gulper eels.