Sixth Anniversary

It is six years since I developed Simply Shanah. In a generation and era where everything is about commercialization and making a profit, the reasons as to why I created this space continue to hold water and are unlikely to change.
When I started Simply Shanah; I had no illusions of grandeur whatsoever of ever making a living off of it.If anything, I was after the space - somewhere I can write and let go of the myriad of thoughts that bog me down, not because writing is my passion but more of therapy to me. And as such, never was perturbed over it’s dismal performance. The knowledge that readers find it relatable now, and think me good enough to turn it into a money-making entity are all unexpected feathers in my cap.
People write for all sorts of reasons most of which is passion for the majority. All of them will say it is hard, more so for those seeking to earn a living from it. Blogging is just as hard if not harder. Setting up a blog with the intent to earn off of it soon as it is up and running is an endeavor doomed to fail. It’s success relies solely on nurturing and time  which are infinite factors.
What our generation has failed to understand is; success takes time and nurturing. In the blogsphere: you need to have good content, time to build up a readership or following and also social media reach. All of which do not happen in a day let alone months. And for those seeking to earn from it; they need to put something down twice or thrice a week to maintain their reach which makes the output of good content and spread extra hard because tastes and opinions differ when it comes to topical issues.
I always encourage friends of mine who are better writers than I, to go into blogging just to nurture and grow their writing skills while at the same time build an audience because they go hand-in-hand. You need to have a solid audience before you can seek to earn from blogging for it is this audience that will pay to read your material and recommend to friends thus spreading your readership. When that happens; your writing skills would have vastly improved. It is the same piece of advice I am extending to all budding bloggers and writers along with; write because you need to and not have to.

Beauty In Ugly

I love saying that I never have thoughts during the creation process and for that matter cannot honestly tell anyone what inspired a piece. There is usually nothing to tell because most of my pieces never ever have back stories. They are simply the results of an imaginative mind.
However, this particular piece has a story. A story I didn’t want to share until a friend of mine asked when my next blog post would be. His question made me reflect on the draft hence the decision to share. To show that sometimes; it is OK to fall apart. To feel like the loneliest soul in the world without anyone to see you through except yourself. So, here goes nothing.
Her misfortune was being worked on during the most tumultuous weeks of my life! A week in which I was dealing with the intense pain of a sprained shoulder, a week where my emotions were in an upheaval, a week where I wished for my brother’s presence like I have never done in my life and intermittently wept like a bereaved person with wracking sobs to match.
On that fateful day; I took her out of the work-in-progress pile and went to work. Black was the color of choice given the situation and mind frame. I filled up the white space taking care not to mar her looks and the design which made her unique.

All she could do was purse her pink lips and take what I had to offer-pain, sorrow and emotional chaos. She was left without choice for she couldn’t talk back. She knew her creator needed to try and keep it together and this was the only way she knew how. After my emotions were spent, I put her away. To be worked on another day; when the mood struck.
Luckily for her, I took her out for inspection, in a better frame of mind no less. I looked at her with a critical eye trying to find the imperfections and irreparable damage my chaotic emotions had wrought. But most of all; it was to check how black suited her because no color does justice to feelings and thoughts like black.

I looked at her through the lens of a camera and seeing her stare at me with her pursed pink lips nudged my heart a little. I felt guilty for making her bear the brunt of my emotions yet she wasn’t the cause of it. Why continue to drown her in my sorrow? Thus, I gave her color. I wholeheartedly tried to bring her to life the way she was originally meant to by putting an effort into making her pretty. In an attempt to make up for the marks of sorrow she could not hide.
However, even in color: she smacks of so much pain and sorrow. The sorrow in her eyes alone is incomparable to the darknss in the lines on her face. In her lies the proof of her creator's hardest lesson in life - a lesson she failed at miserably. And for that; she will forever be the reminder of that lesson and the memories that come with it.

Slave To A Muse.

No Artist Likes Being A Slave To Her Muse. 

I’ve never really had a muse before. I’ve never had a person whose voice, words, thoughts and personality act as sources of inspiration for my art.To date; all my artwork has been a result of my thoughts, imagination and most of all curiosity when it comes to changing up a design. Well, this recently changed and I am torn between good or bad as regards judgement.
Don’t get me wrong, as an artist, any source of inspiration is a godsend. It is an excuse to let go of all the banal and mundane things we do on a daily basis and just be: one with the pencil, one with the mood and let the wave of inspiration lead you where it wants you to go. The process of putting together an art piece and seeing it come to life is much more exciting and breathtaking than everything I have ever known. Much, much more.
The excitement when the creative juices are flowing and seeing your thoughts come together on paper and colour is the reason as to why artists should not be slaves to their muses. Not if the muse comes in form of a living, breathing person. Nope.
I am painstakingly putting the finishing touches to the name doodle I talked of here, a name that belongs to my source of inspiration. Yes, my muse. Someone I could frankly tell you never at all expected to inspire the pieces he has inspired. My creative juices have been overflowing and the artist in me loves it though loathes the thought of being a slave to a muse. The Shakespeare in me has been wrung out in ways you could never imagine and the ever evolving artwork has played background to many a poem. I have written more poems than I could share because they reveal so much. Sharing all would remove several cats out of the bag and arouse questions I have no answers to.
When I begun the artwork, it was a release of my thoughts and feelings. Little by little this ‘Labour Of Love’ (as I call it in my head) is slowly evolving in front of my eyes. The artist in me keeps looking at it in disbelief, wonderment and appreciation of my gift. At the back of my mind, I keep working on it with the intention to give it to him as a memento because they are my memories and want them to be his as it says but now, now, I am like hell NO! I’m going to keep it as my own memento. Something to look back on in my senior years as a reminder of my misbegotten youth and moment of folly.
Recently, it was revealed that Kim Kardashian is Peter Dundas’ muse for Roberto Cavalli. I keep thinking about this while working on my artwork, wondering how he feels having Kim for a muse because I do know how I feel. That one moment when he is in the process of fitting her with his most breathtaking dress for Fashion Week only for Kim to flee? What would happen to his entire collection?
Much as I appreciate my muse for the strokes of inspiration and flexing of creative muscle, I know I do not want my art to be a slave to a muse. No. These muses have the tendency to leave when you least expect it and before you know it, your entire creative mojo is off kilter. Some artists never creatively recover from the loss of a muse. They may keep at the craft but the pieces after are never as good as the ones before the muse fled, so the critics say.

Ps: The background in the picture is a collection of the artwork in its stages of evolution.

Pinspiration

I took a break from my heart series when the idea to explore something new was just a little seedling at the back of my mind.

With the idea, came Lady Luck filled with loads of inspiration. I must say; I hate it when inspiration strikes while I am doing that which pays the bills because it makes it hard to give it the concentration it deserves, and I am usually without pencil and paper.

It's been quite the lazy week at work so when inspiration struck, I took pen to notebook and doodled my thought. It has been years since I doodled. I even thought I didn't have it in me but it is still there. The last doodle I made never translated well into a drawing which I guess, put a stop to my doodling.

Doodling is a fun little way to see how the design will look on a small scale without having to whip out the A4 and sketchbooks. 

My first doodle in several years had quite the reception on Instagram and led me to believe it will transition well on paper complete with details.

The design however, is much more different from the doodle, if I am to be honest. It is so rough in my opinion and something that can easily turn into a work-in-progress for an entire year or two. I'm not writing it off yet just not anxious enough to see it complete at the moment.

When lady inspiration strikes, she is usually with me for a week. This is why I tend to have a succession of back to back designs. This time was no different. I was of the mind to take my art supplies with me to work then eschewed the thought. I thought it fanciful and over expectant of me. You cannot recreate magic twice in a row. Well, I stand corrected. When inspiration struck again, instead of making a little doodle, I gave the actual design a go and voilà. Magic. 

 

Doing an actual design complete with details at work would be grounds for dismissal. I'm glad I didn't get caught. This drawing inspired a different design that I am absolutely in love with. Working on it has brought me so much awe because of the evolution. The evolution of a design remains the most breathtaking experience of my life!

After completion of the outline, I spent the next day scouring Pinterest for pattern inspiration ideas. The talent on Pinterest is immense! The time I spent left me inspired and I now want to start maintaining an art journal. Kudos to the person that invented Pinterest and the people who share their ideas and designs. 

Much as it was overwhelming looking at the scores of ideas, my sojourn over there was successful. I found a pattern (though no less different from what I am usually drawn to) that would fit my vision and the results are amazing!

I am proud of my talent. Being an artist on my off days is the best thing that could happen. And when a design leaves me awestruck, I send a little prayer of thanks to the Almighty. Art is who I am. 

My First Love.

Art is my passion, my first love and most of all the definition of who I am. - Shanah

The two top pieces from the left are more recent than the rest. Some of these are finished

Writing is and has never been my first love nor passion. No. I write because it is the only way I get over feelings of hurt, anguish and most of all incessant thoughts on a particular subject. What I think of myself in those dark solitary moments of creation and drawing is ‘artist’ not writer. I love to design and to draw. It is my first love and will always be. It is the one thing that I have a knack and desire for.
When I talked about it here; I never went into the details. I have drawn since I was a young girl – pre-teens. I used to draw on and off school holidays and breaks. I even remember my first pieces as a young girl. Drawing is something that comes naturally to me, as easy as breathing when the details aren’t so intricate. There are days where I sleep the next morning because I spent the night working on a piece. Days where I unplug; switch off the phone, get off social media and mute the television while I get lost in the moment. In the beauty of the process of creation. Those are the days I live for sometimes. The days when artistic inspiration is on a high and I lose everything to my imagination and the pencil executing the mental concept on paper, are the most exciting days of my life.
I draw a little more often lately and what never ceases to take my breath away is the evolution of a design. There is a whole lot to marvel at during the execution of a mental image and what eventually ends on paper. The mental vision is always different from the final design.This is why it is so hard to put into words the thoughts that brought on a particular piece and the source of inspiration. Thoughts are usually parallel to the actual design. To be honest; when I am drawing nothing is going on in my mind. I’m more still and at peace during those moments- I compare it to meditation and those peaceful moments you find yourself in during prayer.
Much as I am more open with my writing and don’t mind sharing, I am much more sensitive when it comes to my drawing. I never used to let anyone look at my pieces in my youth and still don’t. The only person who used to see the process from start to finish is my brother. No one else. I do share some on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook but it makes me feel like I am standing in the nude for the whole world to see and criticize. And it freaks me out. But I am trying to be a little more open.
Art is the only thing that makes me feel as agitated as a drug addict in withdrawal due to the lack of creative release. Last year, I was forced into buying art supplies for my former place of my employment because I needed that relief. It was the only thing I could think about the entire week. I would surely be lost if I couldn’t draw unlike writing although I need it too to stay sane.
Art is my passion, my first love and most of all the definition of who I am. Everything else comes second to it.

Down in the Doldrums…

It is no secret that I am a fan of the written word and an avid reader. I recently downloaded a zipped compressed file full of Johanna Lindsey’s work that is collection of novels, not all but some. Enough to fill my heart with joy.
I am a lover of her books. I read her when in school and going through some of the titles in the collection took me back to those days. I had no qualms re-reading some of the books I had read especially the Malory Family collection. I enjoyed those; so going through them again as a more appreciative literary person was very pleasant.
There is no doubt as to why she is one the best at historical romance. The dialogue, plot , wit, humour and story line not to forget romance all make her books a fun read. And in my opinion no one does sarcasm and humour best than the English. There is nothing like a good dialogue amongst the characters to make the story flow and draw you in without you realising it.
As a sucker for a good romance; I like seeing people in love and read about it in books and this is why I am down in the doldrums. Reading romance makes you reflect on how lacking your life is and wish to be in love… And having read some of her work back to back in a few days makes me want to be in love which is something for another day…

"You've got to find what you love."

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

I love sharing inspirational and well intellectual and knowledgeable stuff. We learn something new everyday and learning from people who were able to do what they did is always interesting. It gives you a fresh perspective on things.  I shared the speech because I find it inspiring and it is something I would love to go back to when I feel lost. Isn't it funny how most of the enterprising men never went to college or university?

I Love Reading!

It feels so good to finally get back to what I love and am most passionate about in my life, that passion is reading. I am one of those avid readers, if I take long, I feel incomplete, and like something is lacking and I miss it.

Lately, I have been able to do just that; Read. I have read so many books that people get surprised when they find out but it is what I do. I had stopped reading for quite a few years due to a lack of access to novels. The guy I used to borrow from disappeared and also being done with school put a temporary stop to the passion.

 I am the type that hardly spends on a novel but given the chance, I will read it even if from someone else. I don't see the use of buying the book when I am going to be done reading it in a few hours and will probably lend it to a friend.

I used to go to my country's main bookstore, browse through the authors and titles or novels they had in stock.  If I came across a novel I was yet to read. I would take it off the shelf and make myself comfortable in the provided arm chairs, open the novel and read halfway through it. So as not to look suspicious and attract unwanted attention nor give myself away, I would stop midway through the novel, mentally mark the page I had stopped on then I'd leave only to return a few weeks later to finish the novel.

Surprisingly, I was able to carry off the act until one of the shop attendants found me one day, very caught up in the novel! Imagine my shock when she tapped me on the shoulder! She gave me such a fright that I couldn't even pretend or claim that I had been going through the summary! From then onwards, I wasn't allowed to sit in their arm chairs for more than five minutes and I also had to be visible whilst there so they could keep their watchful eyes on me. Due to that, my trips to the bookstore have been infrequent, why go when I can't indulge in my passion?

Where I work, our neighbor happens to sell her collection of novels and rents them out too since few people buy. That is how poor our reading culture is. I used to borrow from her until she refused to rent to me claiming I let my whole family and friends read her books thus returning them in frazzled conditions! I was too surprised because I am the only one that read her novels and aside from my mum, no one else reads in my family. Besides, my mum doesn't read as often as I do. I told her I will never rent from her again. She could as well eat her novels for all I cared!

One of my closest friends ended up giving me a few audio books and one in pdf format. I managed to read the one in pdf format within a few days despite having to read it from my laptop but I have to this moment failed to completely listen to the audio books. Funny thing is; one of the audio books is "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. There are so many rev reviews about the book which should motivate me more but…

Whenever I make the decision to dedicate a day to give it a complete listen, I end up getting irritated by having my earphones on for more than an hour and my mind would keep straying. I am more of a paperback person than an audio listener. It is so weird having a book read to you by someone else instead of you doing it by yourself, having it in your hands and letting your imagination run wild.

I must say, I have some pretty awesome friends. They always try to help me out when it comes to novels and books. One of them recently sent me pdf formats of a few relationship books by Steve Harvey (he is the author of the season) and not only that, he introduced me to online piracy! I should not be proud of that but I am. I have been able to download a few other books and the reader in me is very appreciative because I can satisfy my craving and passion for books. The fact I have to read from my laptop doesn't get me down, much as I am a paperback person, pdf isn't so bad.

Every time I finish a book, I always think of the person that sent it to me and I end up appreciating them more and more. 

xxxShanahxxx 

First Loves

Before we grew up to become sophisticated young men and ladies. Before us girls discovered boys, and before we learnt how to deal with life's little stresses and problems. We had fun little hobbies that used to bring us pleasure every time we carried them out, when we were younger.

When I was younger, I used to draw as a hobby and I loved it. I would draw every weekend and possibly after classes sometimes at school. It’s something that used to make me relax and stop thinking of school problems and other issues that a young girl is sometimes forced to deal with.

As I grew up, dealing with high-school and later university, I stopped drawing. The urge would come to me now and then but I would rarely act on it. This doesn't mean I gave up on it or forgot entirely. Sometimes we have to prioritize and in this case; school had to come first because that laid the foundation of my entire life.

A few months back, my brother returned for vacation. He saw all my art books and asked if I still drew. Sadly, I answered him in the negative. His thinking was, I stopped because I had to deal with school and exams but that didn't mean I should give it up. He knew how passionate I was about it. I realized then that we should never completely give up on something that we love no matter how busy we are.

The funny thing is, a friend also reminded me of how good I was and the pleasure I used to gain from it. Inspiration is a funny thing. After having a good pep-talk with my best friend, ideas begun popping up as I felt the excitement build. I remembered how I would get excited about a design, the finished product. The rush to draw came back and I was happy about it. I had missed not being able to do so all those years that I had stopped.

However much we may be young ladies and men, try not to forget about the things you loved as a child. They are the ones that remind you of your childhood and sometimes you need them to remind you of your innocence.

PS: I would have loved nothing more than to use one of my sketches but I don't have them scanned maybe next time.