Oppositional Defiance is getting me down

Today was very rough. Mahesh was extremly oppositional. His teacher asked them to draw a picture of the "person of the day" for her book. Most of the kids spent about 10 minutes working on this with no arguments. It took Mahesh an hour to complete the drawing with much protest. I had to remove him from the room when all he would do is write words and scribble. now I understand that he has hyperlexia and that words are very interesting to him but he needs to understand that he needs to do what is asked of him. I gave him a new paper and let him try again, he wrote words and scribbled again. I wrote the directions on the white board for him, he read them and said following these rules is not a good choice. I drew a picture of the "person of the day" and described how I was drawing it, he said no. I picked up his hand and drew a picture with him, then told him to draw. He said no. I then ignored him, leaving him with the written instructions, the example and his crayons and paper. He wrote boring boring boring (which is impressive for a first grader, he is so hyperlexic) all over his paper, so I quietly took it away and gave him a new one. He did it again and again. After 45 minutes of this, I went to lunch and left him with his Autistic Support teacher. She sat down on the floor next to him and quietly drew a picture of the "person of the day" and finally he decided to comply. Things like this went on all day but this was the longest incident of defiance. I wonder if there was a better way to handle this?