Simplicity is my lifelong-friend.
My simplicity–friend has cut down my desire – tree.
Be sincere in your thoughts,
Be pure in your feelings.
You will not have to run after happiness.
Happiness will run after you.
-Sri Chinmoy
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It seems to me that in many ways, happiness cannot be acheived. It's not truly something we can "accomplish" or "earn"; Rather, we let it happen.

Children have it easy. It seems so easy to them to be happy. That's because they're so carefree. Sometimes I think that in life, we just have to take a step back.

In my humble opinion, we can't achieve true joy or happiness without not caring.
And it saddens me that it's very possibly impossible for us as people. There are always things to worry about, or consider, or think about.

I don't think we will ever acheive true joy. Not in this world at least.

This is however, my personal emotion and opinion.
Interpret it however you wish. Art can have infinate interpretations and all that
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This is also an entry into the contest held by , in which the entries must convey an extreme emotion.

Proccess:
First and foremost, this was done ALL digitally. Normally, I sketch with paper and pencil, then scan it in. But with this piece, I loved completing it 100% digitally and I'll expound further a little later in the explanation.

First I drew the silhouette of the child jumping. Poses are hard, but silhouettes are even tougher i guess. I think it turned out nice for a first try though.
In order to make it realistic, i sketched basic anatomy and a jacket and clothing and such, then went ahead and did the outline and paintbucket and touchups and such.

After that, I was able to move the silhouette around the piece and adjust the canvas size (which i did many times before i liked it haha). Recently I was reading a photography guide that stressed that center is not always better. However, I still wanted the silhouette to be the focus of the piece while exuting the raw emotion.

Then I created some guide lines (circles) and paintbucketed the beams, painted the fading layers by hand along with the splashing-like effect, adjusted the layer modes and color hue/saturation and such.

Overall, this proccess was very experimental.
Learning is something we artists can never do enough, and expression while we do it is basically a cornerstone of art in my opinion.
--

OK almost done (sigh)
Tools-
Wacom Bamboo Fun (tablet, screen like 3.8x6 or something)
Photoshop 5.0 (woo, outdated outshmated psh)
Tablet Pen (Obviously)

Time- A while longer than i thought it would take

Enjoy! And sorry for the huuuuuuuuuge comment. congrats if you had the patience to read it all