Dawn Mattson has spent years working, settling down and raising children, but that itch to return to writing and illustrating never left the 性视界传媒 woman.
First being driven to the desire to create a book in high school, Mattson ended up taking a different route in her work life post-school, but her artistic side never fully left her. Then, along with a friend, she released a children's book filled with Mattson's illustrations.
"This was the turning point for me. It brought all those dreams of creating my own books back to reality. I sat down and started writing and drawing. Next thing you know I have a book that is mine and mine alone," Mattson said.
But she didn't stop there 鈥� and now the 性视界传媒 author has released her sixth children's book.
The first book began when Mattson was working in retirement living communities.
"In many cases, the problem these communities had is once dinner was over there was nothing to do. The seniors were bored and needed more to do during their daily lives," she explained.
These concerns the residents had typically came to Mattson's door, and she wanted to do something to help. So, she decided to start running a paint night with the seniors once a week.
"I wasn鈥檛 sure how it would go as I hadn鈥檛 painted since high school. Well, let me tell you, I had a room full of people show up and away we went.
"It became such a fun way to spend a quiet weeknight that word spread to other homes. Next thing you know, I was painting in other places from independent to assisted and long-term-care homes."
This initiative by Mattson led one of the seniors, James Peacock, to approach Mattson to help him with a project he had started. Peacock was writing a children's book for his grandkids and wanted to work with Mattson so she could create the illustrations for the book.
"Once he saw the paintings I did with his fellow friends, he decided to finally take the plunge. We created his very first book called Fun With Words."
That may have been the first project, released in 2020, the two worked on, but it wasn't the last. Hey Mister Bear is the title of the second book the two worked on and released together.
After that came several children's books such as Mr. Wiener Misdemeanour and Finnius Funk, My Pet Skunk, leading up to the latest offering Frog's Guffaw Has a Flaw, which is about a frog who loves to laugh loudly but then one day swallows a fly that gets stuck in his throat. But this was not so comedic for him. If interested in reading more, Frog's Guffaw Has a Flaw and Mattson's other work can be found online on Amazon.
Still, even with all of life's demands, Mattson continues to do her weekly paint nights with seniors, inspiring them with art alongside her own writing and illustrating.
"My life is very full," she said.
