I’ve always been fascinated by eagles. It started when my father got frustrated with his four kids for working too slow or not thinking fast enough on the building site. He would shake his head and say, “How can I soar with eagles, when I am flying with buzzards!”
I always chuckled in my mind when he said that. I would immediately envision those sad looking vultures toward the end of the animated movie, “The Jungle Book” and think, “What… vultures… I’m not a vulture!”
If you’ve never seen the animated Jungle Book movie, watch this clip on YouTube, uploaded by Thomas Ferrin, “vultures on jungle book.” You’ll have a better understanding on why you wouldn’t want to be a vulture. They have no “joie de vivre!”
Like the photo of the vultures I have, that’s how they look… but it’s important for you to see how they talk and act. They have no energy, no purpose, no goals.
Then I would think, “NO WAY, I am an eagle!”
This phrase has stayed with me all my life. It’s a tape recording in my mind for those times that I find myself challenged for whatever reason. When I need to draw strength, because I feel there is “no hope,” I remember those words and somehow I stand taller, I take the buzzard out of my mind and I focus on the photo of the eagle above. I draw from his “no nonsense” character, the “determination” in his eyes, and remember, “I do have goals!”
I AM STRONG!
I WILL SOAR!
My Dad will be PROUD!
creating illustrations in black/white that capture Sing’s adventures.
Are you trying to learn Chinese and you are overwhelmed with how many characters you would need to learn? While there are 50,000 characters, a Chinese friend told me that for basic reading I would only need to learn about 3,000 of them. My head was swimming in a sea of characters, only need to learn 3,000? I had a thought that training to climb Mt. Everest might be easier.
He cleverly writes his story teaching us Chinese characters by adding them into the illustrations, so we can visually remember the Chinese characters in a humorous way. Here I show you a few pages from the book, so you can better understand what I mean.
book shares his life story and collection of paintings. It’s a beautiful book, one that should be put on a coffee table and shared with others.
Have you ever thought about how the color of the year is chosen? I’ve always wondered, but as I am not in the design industry never looked into it. However, throughout the years, I would walk through stores “thinking,” I guess this year it is egg plant purple, sunny yellow, cherry red, etc., because every store was using the same color for their products.
On to 2017! I am excited to start the new year. Of course, there is reflection on 2016… what we accomplished, what we might have missed out on, happy moments, challenging ones, and more.
Have you heard the news? Florence, Italy is coming to the big screen this month. Dan Brown’s book, “Inferno“ has been turned into a movie. My mother was born and raised in Florence, so I was pleasantly surprised when I turned on the Today Show (October 20, 2016) and was just in time to see this clip, “
If you’d like to learn more about Florence, you can visit The Florentine 
Being the popular book that it is, the bookstore was out of Sun Tzu’s, “The Art of War;” however, they had a business version called, “
Brilliant Viewpoint 