Today, I drew and completed a portrait in watercolor for my friend Tea, who has a birthday soon. When I look at the beautiful friends around me, I want to paint that glaring beauty. Now, starting with Tea, I'm going to draw pictures for my friends celebrating their birthday.

  When I draw a person's face, I always pay attention to the energy that person radiates. For some people, the energy itself is so bright and clear that when I draw a picture, it seems like light comes out of the picture. While drawing Tha today, I thought that I should become this kind of person.

  ​Every year at Thanksgiving, immigrants gather in small groups of family members or friends to roast turkey, since most of the families they visit are far away. This year, my family stopped by a friend's house to roast turkey and have a good time. When you live in a foreign country, your friends become more like family, and your relationship becomes deeper than that of your relatives. It is a new culture created by living away from home and loneliness.

  ​Below is the bread carefully made by my friend's daughter. The flour dough is decorated like a beautiful work of art and baked deliciously.

  When I got home, I painted Turkey in watercolor. Then I'll be surprised that I've never painted Turkey before. As an artist, I think that I should be more interested in the things around me and paint them.

  ​My local Long Island Museum is a nine-acre museum in Stony Brook, New York. It was pretty chilly in the early winter when I visited this museum.

  ​I opened the door to the small building next to the museum with a cold breeze, and there I found a small room that reproduced an old American classroom.

  In the middle of the room was an old fashioned stove. When I was young, Korea was a developing country. Korea is a country that has developed very rapidly. In Korean classrooms in the 1970s, there were stoves in each classroom. The students took turns bringing coal to put there and making a fire. The student sitting by the stove was a very lucky seat. At lunch time, the children put their lunch boxes on the stove and heated them up. So at that time, Korean children's lunch boxes were all made of aluminum for warm up on the stove.

  ​It was a moment that made me feel as if I had traveled back in time and opened the classroom door in front of my classroom in the past. So I thought. A museum is a door that connects the present and the past. We look ahead and run. Good performance, great grades, great work, lots of possessions...we run forward to get them. However, I feel that our local museum is like a back door that shows the past to me. It is a place where you open the door to meet the past, connect with the present, and give strength to move forward.

  Children love to walk the streets and pick up pretty leaves, feathers and stones. This is a beautiful mind that you have for a while in childhood. As an adult, you are no longer interested in these pretty objects. If there is money on the street, we will try to give it. I love these little things that kids bring from time to time. When they bring them, the hearts they bring with them are so beautiful. These hearts are precious gifts that we receive at no cost.

  I thought about nature for a moment. Nature brings us these gifts all day long. The fallen leaves that gently fall over your head while you walk, the fallen leaves that emit beautiful fall colors from the floor, the pretty shiny stones you accidentally find on the beach, the shells, and the birds chirping with a musical sound... Nature, like children, teaches us beauty every day.

  Once upon a time, my friend Emilia showed me a red robin feather that she stumbled upon. She treasured it in her purse and showed it to me. I thought to myself that her heart was more beautiful than that feather. After all, that feather was something she happened to be sitting under a tree and picked up when Robin flapped her wings. I thought she had a bigger windfall than her lottery.

  I am currently drawing and writing a children's book. The inspiration given to me by a friend has become a fairy tale book. Soon I will post this book here.

   And today, I completed the previously drawn valley picture. Because I live in an area where there are not many mountains on a flat land, I sometimes miss valleys. Korea is surrounded by mountains to the extent that 63% of the land area is said to be mountains. And those mountains are rocky mountains that are dominated by rough granite. That's why it's easy to see rocks and valleys like this in every neighborhood. A valley like this is always in my childhood memory photos.

  ​Maybe that's why when I drew the valley, I wanted to redraw this valley in a larger size someday. It's a small painting today, but I think this kind of work helped to soothe my homesickness to some extent.

  In relationships with people, there are times when I give up the heart I was holding on to because of love. In particular, in my case, I tried to preserve my relationship with people who lashed out at me with tearful eyes and hurt me with countless words. I was pitiful for them back then, and I truly loved them. So, at one time, when they hurt me and cursed me with no respect, I just let it be. At that time, they were more important than the wounded me.

  But I learn from nature. There was absolutely no need for me to... Even the little birds empty their nests when the time comes. If something attacks them, they will run away. They just live in the passing time in the changing seasons. Because life itself is so important and precious. But I used to be a foolish kid who believed that It was worth more than that. The child grows and learns from nature. Just leave it alone like nature, like time passing, like a tree...

​  If your heart hurts, you can avoid the person who hurt you. You don't have to listen to what you don't want to hear. You don't have to be kind to people who don't respect you. To live, keep distance and live like nature where you can feel the beauty of nature. You deserve it.