It was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of my childhood hero yesterday--Ray Bradbury.  Once upon a time, a long time ago, I came upon a book he wrote in the high school library...THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.  From that point forward, I devoted a good portion of my life to writing and trying to emulate the poetic style which seemed to ooze from his novels.  My nickname here at dArt is "montag451" which is derived from Mr. Bradbury's prophetic novel, FAHRENHEIT 451 with anti-hero Guy Montag as the focal point of the story.  DANDELION WINE remains another favorite of mine and to this day, I have this and other classic novels and collections of short stories by Mr. Bradbury in a bookcase in the living room just a few feet away from where I'm writing at this moment.  
  Many years ago, I shared some correspondence with Ray Bradbury about Guy Montag and FAHRENHEIT 451; his passion for the novel he wrote in just a few days amazed me and his enthusiasm for exploring the unknown had a lasting effect upon me ever since.  I took it upon myself to write a continuation of a short story he wrote called--"The Pedestrian."  I sent my work to Mr. Bradbury with a certain amount of reservation that he might be upset with me for daring to extend the story about Mr. Leonard Mead.  Weeks later, my story came back to me in the mail in the return envelope I had provided and Mr. Bradbury was actually quite pleased with what I'd written.  I did do one more draft of the story but for one reason or another, didn't get a chance to send it to Mr. Bradbury...you will find my continuation of "The Pedestrian" here in my Gallery and please feel free to read and comment as you please.
  Time itself marches on and I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone here at Deviant Art for their comments, Faves, Watches and so on!  Your words of encouragement are most inspiring and will continue to have me creating and uploading new images as often as possible..."Stay tuned!" as I've written here many times so shall it remain.
  All the best to one and all and yes, "Stay tuned."  More to come!
  CHEERS!!

Sheldon

At long last and long overdue once again, time to update my Journal and my oh my, what an interesting and wonderful five months it's been!  And where to begin? Well, I'll start by saying that I'm very, very pleased to say that the video I had prepared of "River Of Life Lounge Remix" for New Age/New World artist--Marcome, has now been uploaded to YouTube and can be viewed at this URL: [link]
It was quite a coincidence that Marcome and I met on the Internet and having discovered her music a year ago, I would invite one and all to watch the video and also visit her website at:  www.marcome.com  ...Mesmerizing, angelic, other-worldly--just a few of the glowing adjectives I could use to describe Marcome's voice and music.  A must listen.  Really.  And more productions using my images for Marcome's songs will be forthcoming in the future, so stay tuned for this also.
And while on the subject of YouTube, kudos to dArt's...That-One-Other-Dude who did a video presentation using some of my images for "Only Because Of Ghosts" by Nine Inch Nails in 2009. Please check out Lar's fine YouTube production at: [link]
Finally, one more YouTube entry from dArt member -SilentArtists- using one of my images--"Gargoyles Of Abaddon." I must say that it was very eerie indeed to see "Gargoyles" in the video.  You can check out the video here: [link]
I'm also very happy to say that since my Journal entry last October, almost 88,000 more views of my images here at dArt.  Once again, I find all of this very humbling and I do my best to answer everyone's comments and notes and so on.
Needless to say, I will continue with the fractal and abstract art as much as possible.  And I will also do my best to be more frequent with Journal entries from now on...sort of a belated New Year's promise or something similar.
So, until my next entry, thanks a million to one and all who have taken the time to visit my gallery here at dArt and to those as well who have messaged me with their encouraging comments.

At long last and long overdue, another addition to my Journal!  The past several months has seen me busy with creation of new images until the wee hours of the morning and answering visitors' comments as much as possible.  These alone number in the thousands and very quietly also, I'll soon have 40,000 views of my deviations here at DevArt.  It's all quite humbling and exciting at the same time and needless to say, I'll continue with the artwork and am taking steps to give people the opportunity to purchase my Prints.  Stay tuned on that one...
  In the meantime, I've garnered a "following" of sorts with some three dozen Watchers who keep track of my creations and faithfully share their thoughts and comments about the latest pieces I post here.  I hope they'll continue to contribute in this way as I do my best to come up with colorful and thought-provoking works for everyone to enjoy.  I thank each and every one for their support!
  As well, I want to thank those DevArt "Wiz Kids" who create the flames which I've used to make many, many images.  The list of contributors in this respect is quite long but I've taken careful thought to mention their names to the image/images which I made using their flames.  I will be posting a Journal entry in the near future to make mention of each one individually with links to their respective sites here at Deviant Art.
  One thing which has not changed since my last entry is the feeling that in some peculiar fashion or manner, I am "decoding" a very intricate and complex database of fractal mathematics with the images I create.  To me, the act of creating a fractal piece of artwork is as much Research and Exploration as it is--Creation, so to speak.  It's all quite mesmerizing and incredibly wonderful.  And I continue to "see" the heart of fractal equations as an intricate mathematical DNA helix, for lack of a better term.  And on that note, I've been trying to think of new terms which might better reflect the kind of art I do.
  In a way, I see myself as an archaeologist--one who sifts and digs and discovers amazing items and artifacts and presents these to the world for everyone to see.  And almost laughing, the notion of Indiana Jones comes to mind as well--with the famous hat but not the whip.
  So, all in all, I'm having a lot of fun doing what I do with Fractal/Abstract Art.  But the downside to this is having "discovered" many of my pieces on other websites.  Hmmm...Indiana Jones had that problem also, didn't he?  Well, I'll be taking necessary steps to have these pirate sites remove my artworks.  I'm not the only artist from DevArt who has run into this problem but we'll just have to deal with unscrupulous individuals as best we can.  And that is that.
  And all said and done, I will end this Journal entry with a heart-felt "Thank you!" to all of those people who have taken the time to message me with their words of encouragement and support.  Until next time...take care!