Return of the Tiki
After an extended absence, it is the return of the Tiki! You know you have missed him, as have I.
Yes, the Tiki is never quite the same Tiki. All the Tikis that you see here are cousins instead of being all the same Tiki. You can probably spot the family resemblance if you look closely.1
The last Tiki appeared here in February. That is a relatively long absence, considering that we had the Tiki of the Month going on for a while here. While that series may have ended, the Tikis live on, as you can see here.
This Tiki is happy as ever, too. Because a happy Tiki makes more friends than a grumpy Tiki. It’s a fact of life!2
Happy Love
Do love and anger go together? Or love and grumpiness?
As is mentioned above, a happy Tiki (or a happy person) makes more friends than a grumpy Tiki. Or person. And if we are trying to love one another, we can do that much more effectively by being happy and friendly.
Yes, sometimes things upset you or make you sad. That is also a fact of life. There are times when it is okay to have those emotions (see Ecclesiastes 3, for example).
But if you dwell on those negative emotions, they can overtake your life. And they can limit your ability to love others. Deep down, those emotions are selfish emotions. And while you do have to focus on yourself at times, our main focus should be on others.
So if you want to show love to someone, do it with a smile. It will be much better received that way. Because both love and smiles are contagious. They spread like crazy. Which is a good thing.
A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed. - Proverbs 15:13
About the Artwork
Always looking to try something different, I gave this one a burlap-type look, although you have to look closely to see it. As I have often stated, I like textures, and this one seemed like a good fit.
Here is a detailed look at part of the artwork, because sometimes some of the detail gets lost when resizing for web use:
And yes, I was reminded of Return of the Jedi when I titled this. Yes, that movie was originally released 41 years ago3, and I saw it at the theater in its original run. Not that any of that has anything to do with this art.
Almost all of the recent art of the past few years, including this piece, have been created using the Procreate app on my iPad. However, I am trying something new now, so this might be the last piece of Procreate art for a while. Yes, that will mean having to learn some new ways to do things, such as textures like you see above. Learning something new is sometimes challenging and sometimes takes a bit of effort, but it can often be worth it in the long run. I’ll let you know how it goes.
