Esther Wallace

October 17, 2016 The Enemy of Time and Exhaustion Although I am quite capable of most aspects of the project I picked, the all too frequent lack of motivation or procrastination, often spurred by intimidation, is a large pace slower. It is likely a common problem, but I find myself, many a time, simply taking out all my paints, brushes, papers, and so forth, only to stare at the blank paper, dreaming of what it will look like, what it looks like in my mind, and fearing how my hands will not, cannot turn that imagination into reality. Under those circumstances, I eventually turn to image hunting, searching for anything, anything that will bring my imagination into clearer focus. Usually, after what seems like hours of searching, I still find nothing, and am forced to pick up the courage and work without any assistance, or come back later when I can find my courage. Sometimes, only pressure brings the courage. When I know I just need to complete it and I cannot wait any longer, I just

  October 10, 2016 Painting Dilemmas As a card deck heavily reliant on painting, my project is progressing somewhat slowly. Painted masterpieces are not things that can be rushed, and unlike working with computers, there is no undo button. With paints, there is not even the eraser of a pencil. Perhaps a mistake can be painted over; sometimes it cannot and if it cannot, the painting might require starting from scratch. I use Photoshop to fix some of those errors, rather than scrapping hours of work, but the intimidation of that fatal mistake can be time consuming in and of itself. Actually, I did not have too much trouble with intimidation or mistakes (nothing that could not be fixed in Photoshop) until this last character painting, the character of Lisya. The fact that she has been this much trouble was a surprise after the last four, and yet, since she is the enchantress, the slowness was somewhat expected. I drew three diff

Princess Herona and the Dragon Short Story Third Place Winner of the Georgia Peach Writing Contest  Esther Wallace Dust and the thundering rumble of crumbling stone filled the air. “He’s attacking the keep!” Racing up the north tower, Princess Herona saw five-foot claws slash past the arrow niches. After devouring even the country’s wild game, the dragon was after the last of their livestock hidden in their dungeons. “Dragon!” Herona bellowed, leaping the last steps through the opening at the top. Her call brought searing flames racing overhead, singeing her ebony locks as she hastily ducked. “Dare you speak?” the dragon roared. First, tongue lapped over the balustrade, then nostrils rose into view, and then the burning yellow eyes appeared, shining with vindictiveness. Herona met that gaze without averting her own green eyes, although her body’s tremble betrayed her. “Leave our castle alone,” she offered, “and I will give you myself.” “What’s to stop me from eating you now?” “I

I was speaking with a young man the other day about how mind wiping or mentally tricking another human being in order to hide magic was completely corrupt. His theory was that it was not that terrible because of how wrong the world would be if magical people and animals simply walked around. I instantly asked the question, ‘how so’ and he gave me a look as if I had two heads. I never finished that conversation. That aside, if magic were something real, something humans and creatures could be born with, there are certain rules we know it would have to follow, rules of all nature, rules placed in the universe before the dawn of creation, because these rules stem from the character of the Creator Himself. The first rule is, No natural ability is evil : Outside of sin, which is part of free will, f someone is born with the ability to do anything, draw sing, etc. it was placed there by God, and He never makes anything bad. It is up to the person himself or herself to do