EINSTEIN <\/a>took years to formulate his theories of relativity. Despite learning disabilities he persevered transforming the way we look at the world. This amazing thinker said “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer”.<\/i><\/p>\nDeveloping an attitude of persistence is vital to being an illustrator. I’ve learned that for every sketch that works, there are reams of ideas on tracing tissue that simply don’t. I file them away in drawers and hold on to them just to remind myself to keep drawing. Sometimes an old sketch might spark an idea for a future project but often they sit there turning brown as the years go by. As a young artist I was intensely frustrated when things didn’t come out just right. Over time I realized it’s important to get over perfectionism and keep going. Procrastination takes over if you focus on your failures.<\/p>\n
Now that I have a son I know it is most important to complement him on working really hard. I want to encourage him to choose more challenging tasks and know that in the marathon of life persistence counts. We all need to model persistence and teach kids it’s good to make mistakes and fall short. Let them feel those big feelings when they fail, tell them to take breaks but most importantly keep going.When learning not to give up a child may hit the wall but you’ve got to aim their sights at the door and teach them how to find the opening.<\/p>\n
I hope the story and images in Drum Dream Girl<\/b> will encourage children to ask thoughtful questions and keep dreaming. To become problem solvers and never give up. Grow the determination needed to achieve their goals and keep practicing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking back at the year I’ve been thinking about the power of perseverance and it’s importance in my own life. What mattered most in the story Margarita Engle wrote about Millo Castro Zaldarriga, was her determined courage to keep going. It’s much easier to give up than persist through setback and disappointments. The volcanic color and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,77,42,78,79,33,80,81,19,34,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions\/951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rafaellopez.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}