Couch time at approximately 45 degrees from yesterday

This is two weeks in a row when I didn’t get up and ride my bike on a Sunday morning. And it looks like it’s a lovely morning outside. I’ll probably regret the missed opportunity in another week, but for right now I feel kind of like I’m in a recovery or rebuilding time. Like I’m taking a little time off the recharge the enthusiasm.

So I spent this morning lying about on the newly re-aligned sofa. Marcella and I re-arranged our living room yesterday afternoon. We really didn’t plan to do it, but we got back from running errands, and I pulled out the vacuum to do a little cleaning and I was looking at moving some things around to get the vacuum around efficiently and I just started eyeballing spaces and thinking about what would fit where, and then Marcella asked me what I was thinking about, and soon we were moving the furniture. That’s how it goes. I think the sofa was rotated about 45 degrees, and the entertainment (TV) center was moved along to be centered on the big wall instead of in the corner. I feel like we’re making more use of the living room and it feels a little less crowded.

While lying on the newly rotated sofa, I’ve been checking out events on facebook, and listening to some music…just a random mix from iTunes, and working through some spanish flash cards. There are a couple of my current vocabulary words that I’m having a hard time keeping the articles straight…is it an “el” or a “la?” I did let everyone know that I’m taking a night time spanish class once a week, didn’t I?

If anyone is interested in seeing what I’ve been listening to this morning just click the “Lifestream” link at the top of the page and look for the entries with the little red icon next to them. Like I say, it’s just a random shuffle of songs from my iTunes library.

For the rest of the day I’m thinking there is more house-cleaning on the horizon. There’s always a litterbox to be cleaned. And I also want to spend some time reading. I read about half of Fragile Things last weekend, based on Finley’s vote as to what my next reading project would be. I’m hoping I can make some more progress this weekend. I was enjoying it, but somehow didn’t manage to read much during the week. There’s also the possibility of a little chess playing over at chess.com. I’ve got games going with Finley and Scott at the moment, my two most frequent opponents.

Well, I think that probably sums up my Sunday…past and future. What’s up in your world?

Drawing Class Five

The final class. Click on the thumbnails to see larger versions. The only comment I’ve got is that the egg shape is impossible.

Drawing Class Four

It’s been ages and I still haven’t finished posting all the pictures from my drawing class back in February. So, that being said, here’s the product from class four. Like before you can click on the thumbnails to embiggen them.

Drawing Class One

I’ve been meaning to write for a while about the drawing class I’ve been taking once a week. I’ve attended four classes so far. The last one will be this week.

It’s been pretty interesting. I don’t know that the results have been as dramatic as I might have hoped, but nonetheless it is good to make the attempt, and my drawing has shown some improvement, I think.

These first drawings are pre-instruction. The instructor wanted us to have something to evaluate our later drawings against.

These next two drawings are examples of drawing from some samples that the instructor handed out. The trick here is that we had to draw them upside down. The idea is that when you look at the originals upside down you stop seeing or thinking about what the picture is actually about, and instead see just the shapes and lines.

Much of the first class is geared around the idea of disconnecting the left hemisphere of the brain and bringing the right brain to the fore. The theory is that the left brain is the portion of the brain that controls language and logic, and the right brain is the visual oriented half, and that we need to train ourselves to activate that right side way of thinking. There are assorted tricks for trying to do this, like drawing something upside down.

So these are the results from class one. I’ll post the results from some of the subsequent classes soon, but I wanted to give everyone the chance to comment on how pathetic these are first.

The class is based on the book, “The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards.