Hiking by a stream

In the interests of helping Tofu read English (his Japanese reading is super, but he has much less opportunity to practice English), I have been sending him little stories, with pictures to go with them.  This picture is for a story about a boy named Tofu and his fictional canine friend Jonny, spending a cool Saturday morning floating dandelions down a stream to see which ones go the fastest (incidentally a surprisingly fun and unpredictable game).

When I was younger and thought I was a pretty good artist, I was concerned almost exclusively with how realistic my figures were.  That is still an issue, and I still have a long way to go, especially in drawing from my imagination rather than from life.  Nevertheless, it is not everything in a picture.  I must aim for the whole to be harmonious: form and color and the movement need to come together in a way that could be called beautiful.  Even in a picture such as this one, whose purpose is to accompany a reading lesson, if it is put together carelessly, it would be better to ditch it as not worth showing to anyone, much less sending to someone I love in a faraway place.  Everything I do is worth the time.  It's all for God and from God, who made every insect, every leaf, every molecule beautiful.