One of my current Tuesday group Mandarin students is in her early 80s, and very active, going to all sorts of events (exhibitions, e.g.) and classes. The latest that I know of is painting.
She’d attended my Mandarin evening classes some 30 years ago, and is now back for my Tuesday group classes, as well as learning Russian.
She said in a WhatsApp text that she thought painting would be less stressful than learning Russian or Chinese, adding, “Wrong!”
This reminds me of a geography map drawing exercise we were set when I was at secondary school in St Joseph's Convent.
The technique that was being taught for this exercise was how to copy something more scientifically and systematically than just judging with the eyes and transferring that image onto a sheet of paper but larger.
(The technique is: draw a grid over the image to be copied; draw another grid over the final sheet of paper, but scaled up. One then tries to reproduce (/ enlarge) each section of the grid proportionately, thus resulting in something that’s closer to the original than just random judging with one’s eyes. One of my maternal uncle’s friends had produced a portrait approx. 2’x3’ [I seem to remember] of my maternal grandfather, from a passport-size photograph of him, using this method.)
For the geography map drawing exercise, we were given the map of Africa.
My homework came back with the comment from the teacher, “This isn’t Africa. It’s a butter bean! Do it again.”
(Singapore, 1967?)
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