April 2019

Last month was a time of introspection.  I discovered that I don't have time to do everything I want in a lifetime; that I have to decide what's really important and focus on that. I stopped all my origami studies, and devoted more time to reading and journal writing. Books I've finished reading are: Pegasus book 1, The Flame of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn, and Shadow of the Dragon book 1, also Kira by Kate O'Hearn. I'm enjoying O'Hearn's juvenile writing style. The double spaced print and simple vocabulary make each chapter easy to read, and the stories are packed with the kind of action I've seen in movies like Percy Jackson's The Lightning Thief. After a completing those books I leveled up to reading and finishing The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. There were a lot of big words in that book that would normally have frustrated me to a point where I would never have finished the first chapter, so I was thankful to have strengthened my reading skills with O'Hearn's books and I want to continue reading them while challenging myself with more complex novels like The Dark Tower The Gunslinger by Steven King, and literary classics like Around the World in 80 Days or 2000 Leagues Under the Sea. I have found a wealth of free information at the local public libraries, and found a program called Link + that will find any book from any library branch, place a hold on it and deliver it to any branch that would be most convenient for me to pick up.
I'm currently reading Pegasus book 2, Olympus at War by Kate O'Hearn, and I got a really nice drawing instruction book by Jessica Peffer called Dragonart How to Draw Fantastic Dragons and Fantasy Creatures. This book is great because it shows how to use a line of action to figure out complex poses, simple geometric shapes for building anatomy, and principals of light and shadow for different styles (flat cel and soft shading) of rendering. All of these things I've already learned from over 6 years in art colleges, but the book offers a way for me to hone my skills, and hopefully improve my artwork over time. Maybe at some point I might consider enrolling in an online class, but the free library books are enough for now.
It's important to remember that thoughts can become things, but one must dedicate the time to focus on dreams we wish to manifest into reality. It doesn't mean we have to loose sleep or sacrifice the quality time we want to be with loved ones.  It can be 10 minutes a day, in the morning before anyone wakes up! ( my favorite time). With persistent dedicated focus things so magnificent as the Golden Gate Bridge have and will come into being. Have you ever wondered how the Golden Gate Bridge was built? At one time it was just an idea in one man's mind, but the idea spread like a wildfire into many minds of engineers and businessmen. There was tremendous opposition from the military and from the ferry boat companies that were afraid of losing business as a result of the bridge, but Joseph Strauss found a way. He was just a human being like you or me, but his drive to succeed was what made a difference in all of our lives. When I get frustrated I look online for people like that to inspire me; that I can learn from. Here is a link to the article I read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge

Also, vsit my website at www.stanimation-productions.com to see more of my artwork.


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