People are Funny! Ongoing Study of Neurotypicals (and their cars)

I love people! They are so funny!
I made a public appearance, meaning ofcourse I went to the store. It's my favorite place to study the species to which I, often in humor, belong. Ok, sort of, but only if I stretch it. hehe. People were very pleasant today, so all I'd have to report was that. Gratefully, the day was saved by a fellow driver.
 It's not new to me. I've been doing this for ages, and I've noted that no matter where I stop at a stop light, a driver in the next lane will pull an average distance of 2-6 feet infront of me, even it means going far over the line. Even if it means a Semi might be comming directly at them, and even it means a police car is nearby. I don't think they can help it, so I try not to get too close to the line to give them room to get ahead without endangering themselves. I think it has something to do with a curious competitive streak, I've heard about. I'll have to study that more.
   I had the advantage of being on the far left of two left turn lanes, and in the only one that continued. In other words, his lane merged into mine just after the turn. Seeing he wanted to go first, I looked over trying to get his attention to let him know it was ok. I didn't know that something might not be very pressing to him afterall, but he wouldn't look or didn't see me. With the hand that went up over his face from my side, I'm guessing he was hiding. Fun stuff!
  Ofcourse, I'd let him go first anyway, but he ran the red turn light just as adjacent lights turned yellow so he could get ahead. That might not have been necessary, had he not hidden, but it was his call.
   I sure hope he made it to the bathroom, his late appointment for a labotomy or whatever he had going on. I realize I gave up the right of way, but it's never worth fighting over, and it's far more entertaining to enjoy the show.
  What's curious to me, is from my experience, had we both approached a door, he'd have held it open for me. I always wonder which is real, but I'm sticking with the driver side of people being more authentic. It's certainly more entertaining.
tina

Reference Photos: A Second Look

    Photos are my shopping list of what I want to include in a painting. Even when getting close to photo realism, I'm free to edit out or add to the photo. In the following example. I've nearly copied the lower half of the photo.
  I found the reflection of myself, the chair and the closet door uninteresting, so I created a fantasy within the reflection. I've been careful to follow the general distortion of my own figure in the photo in creating the dancing figures. In other words, anything can go in this space as long as I follow the original distortion created by the curve of the sphere. This sphere is actually a Christmas ornament, and I've chosen to omit the small bit of ornament that shines to the lower right, making it only a sphere.
   We can improve on photos in many ways. My personal priority is to make more vivid the shapes of light and dark that I see, so that they are clear to the viewer. This will be apparent in the shapes of light on the walls and ceiling of this piece. They are greatly exaggerated. Other ways are to change colors, further soften and hide these shapes or add something of the artist's dreams or fantasies to a piece. It could even be a symbol that means something to the artist.



   For me, piano music and slow dancing go together, and the view from the shiny ball gives the viewer a peek at an intimate moment, made more vivid in size and by contrast.
   Left is the photo, and right is my finished work.

I hope you'll take a second look at reference photos that may not have been your idea of what they should be. They just might make for a good reference as an inspiration for fantasy.



"Dance of the Piano"
11x14"
Acrylic on Canvas

Happy seeing and painting!

tina jones