Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Just another day...

In 1982, a singer named Bertie Higgins had great success with a song called  "Just Another Day in Paradise".   I loved this song and was living in my first apartment in the big city and I played it often.  So whenever someone says it's just another day, I always add "in paradise"...

So the reason for the title of this post...well, it's just another day.  I love my life and am fulfilled by the way I live it.  I know some people would shake their head at what makes me happy, but as you, my loyal readers know, I don't give a rat's ass what they think. They don't know me.

What made me happy today was going about my daily routine, tweeking it as I go.  I wake up, always thinking and analyzing the dream I just left.  I brush my teeth and look at my hair to see if it will last another day. Today it would not. So it was shower and shampoo before dressing to go out to the newspaper box.

I watched television and had some coffee and cake and watched it rain and rain. Chelsie and I postponed our lunch plans.  We will wait for a dryer day.  I watched some more television, catching up on Gotham and Scorpion.

I thought about making another video, but for some reason that didn't go as plan, so I went on to something else.  I am not easily frustrated, if something doesn't work after several tries, I go on to something else.  That something else today was illusion drawing.  Super realistic drawing and painting intrigues me and sometimes I take a stab at it.  Today's stab was in the form of an exercise (or project) for children in which you draw the outline of your hand on a piece of paper, then add straight lines and curved lines to make the flat hand-print appear to be 3D.  This is sometimes called 3D art or as I mentioned, illusion art.  It can be very elaborate, involving more than one drawing surface, such as this...

and often the use of scissors to cut portions of the drawing out, to add to the illusion..

or maybe some illusion letters...

While all of these techniques are awesome, they are a bit daunting. I practiced today on illusion art of my hand.  I posted this on my fb page tonight, but I'll show it again here...


the idea is to outline your hand and then to do straight lines on the background and curved lines on the hands.  It's something children can easily do and if you search for illusion hand art for children, you will find several websites showing you just how to do this.

All of this is leading up to what I did today...yes, I spent several hours doodling a picture of my own hand. I was joking before, but there may actually be people that think I have too much time on my hands. Those unfortunate folks don't understand that something like this is extremely educational.  You learn that curves and shadowing can take a flat drawing and make it appear three dimensional. It can apply to anything, once you learn the technique.  You can make block letters that have dimension and you can put shadows under something to make them appear to be lifted from the paper, which adds dimension.  In any event, for me, sitting around and doing something as simple as drawing an outline of my hand is important. I am very happy that I have the time and means to stay at home and do this.

I love doing it.

I may be twisting wire together tomorrow for a sculpture of some sort. This weekend I arranged silk flowers.  I am happy sitting around doing these things and I thank "all the powers that be" for being allowed to do this.

Well, that's all for now. We will talk later.

2 comments:

Peri said...

I really love illusion artwork. Like you, I enjoy graphite work and these pictures you have posted here are wonderful. Thanks so much!! Your color piece is great! I really like the ladder too. How about a drawing of a hand drawing some illusion work? Yeh...I bet you can do that. Speaking of Scorpion..the one on Oct 26 was great!! I was simply glued to the set so to speak.
Don't forget to post the wire sculpture.... I am all excited to see what you do!!
Keep on , Keeping on, Kiddo!!

Countryfolk Keepsakes said...

This is extremely cool!!!