First off click the image to see a larger version. This print is 20×40. Now back to Choosing Your Adventure…..

As many of you that follow me know that the last few days art wise have been pretty rough. The waste can has gotten a little fuller and I even decided to just take the night off, in which I had a wonderful chat with two of my neighbors, a veteran who’s been home since January and the other a master wood craftsman. It was a nice male bonding moment, that was only enhanced by the screams of the neighborhood over who won last nights game.

By the time I came back into the house, my desire to draw was diminished and I realized that it was time that I took a little rest. I needed to walk away for a moment and clear my head. Which is now a little more focused.

I remembered that I had made the choice in choosing this grand adventure and that I needed to refocus my efforts and sort of balance things out a bit to make this cave walk a little more exciting.

In storytelling there are always parts that take a little longer to complete, pages redrawn, and even completely reorganized. Those pages actually turn out the best when all is said and done and though there might not be a lot of action, they really are the meat of a good tale. I am going through that right now. Yet there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I can see the excitement of getting through issue 6 and starting issue 7 which I just finished scripting last night. It is so much better than I anticipated.

One of the other things I am learning is to slow it down a tad, just a tad and not force it. Every adventure needs planning, but every adventure needs to be fun as well. We can make this adventure enjoyable, even in the frustrating times, or we can make it just miserable and quit. The choice is ours to decide.

The piece above, happened by chance. I was watching 3 little boys at the time play and go on an incredible adventure. It sent me back to my adventures so long ago and I realized how much I had missed those fantastic journey’s deep into underground lairs, deserted cities and magical places.  There was not as much technology then and our adventures were out of books and old tv, yet the summer days of being sent outside really helped inspire the directions my stories would take on in later years.

So don’t be afraid to play a little, and encourage your children to play and imagine. You never know what it will inspire them to do.

So back to my world of the bean. My adventure, my journey. One that I do not mind going on alone, though enjoy the company and honestly the more that come by and play the more fun we all seem to have. So dream and dream big…..

trav