Friday, April 20, 2007 B "How We See Art" 10:31pm Perhaps we look at it and see ourselves looking back, or the gods looking back, or... I'm almost certain this picture was influenced by having viewed the first two programs of How Art Made the World: How Humans Made Art and Art Made Us Human. I saw this DVD set at Hastings and had a feeling it would be inspirational. Dr. Nigel Spivey gives insights I'd never heard in my art history classes nearly, gulp!, thirty years ago. Saturday, April 21, 2007 "Evening Walk in the Park" 10:16pm I smiled when I read one environmental organization's letter to get us to take an Earth Day pledge "to go out to enjoy nature this weekend at a wildlife refuge, park or forest near you," for I had been already planning to have such a visit. The weather has been unseasonably cool here, and for normally hot Yuma, often getting close to the hundreds in April, this is a lovely thing. The West Wetlands park was filled with many people enjoying its delights. I caught several with cameras and movie cams.

We kept to the higher trail because Julia didn't want to get sand in her shoes...

He's there with his movie cam...

There were bird watchers, armed with guide books, too. I watched a very fast hummingbird, but did not catch him in the viewfinder. However, I did capture many flowers in bloom: The evening light made nice revealing shadows... Prickly Pear blooms... As we made our way back, I saw Julia and I with long shadows... Sunday, April 22, 2007 A "Thoth Art Card" 12:13pm I went to Micheal's last night hoping to find smooth bristol board in precut art card sizes. I have trouble cutting the perfect 2.5 X 3.5 inch size. Alas, there were no types of paper in this size. So I shall make do with my own cuttings. I did find a nifty colored pen set, which I tried out on two art cards. I decided to try observational drawing which for me is quite a challenge to do in such a small area. After a practice piece, I decided to have a go at my Thoth statue:

   
The two characters outlined in blue at upper right are hieroglyphs for 'Lord of Ma'at', one of his titles
(The right is back of this card...)

I think I am improving, especially when I look at the Thoth drawing I did last year, which was not on constrained size. 4:39pm I couldn't stop playing with this image. I tried an inverted image, and then because that seemed to lack dimensionality, I played some more: Maybe this one is best of all? Sunday, April 22, 2007 B "Visual Dna" 10:29pm Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™ In case the animated image doesn't work, this is a freeze frame of it... That is something called 'Visual DNA'. I picked from different photos what most expresses my likes and dislikes. It seems fairly accurate. Here's a copy n paste of one aspect: I don't get the 'part time lover' thing, though, as 'long time commitment, the relationship that grows deeper with time' is most important. Elsewhere, it declares I love 'physical activity'. Hmm, the tester can't guess how many hours my butt is glued to the computer chair? Possibly, this is because I picked a nature scene for where I'd like to be. Um, I like the nature scene, and the 'getting there' is just the means. Still, I'd like to be out in nature more often. They did get it right on the 'fun' aspect when it said "I find it hard to switch off, as I like to learn all the time." They got that right. Each night, I say I will go to bed early, but then I always find something to intrigue my interest. It's a fun quiz.

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