A History of Art part 10

Started the afternoon at a funeral home in Red Bank (the mother of a co-worker), then back down to the Studio by around 3:30 pm. I continued working the same areas of the 3rd and 4th level that I worked yesterday. In the mall segment I changed some of the architecture, adjusted the escalator and added an "up" sign, put in the trees and some plants, and added a couple of figures. Still needs a little work, but it's close.

Spent a lot of time in the hardware store as well. I added a figure opening the trap door, re-drew those barrels, and filled the shelves with various tools. All vintage items from the supply of stuff my grandfather left behind when he moved. I think this area is done.

The corner that connects the mall and hardware store was dealt with today, a scene of whittling. I mentioned a few days ago that I had been playing with tools from a very young age. It was not too many years later that I got ahold of one of my father's old pocketknives, which gave me my first experiences in wood carving. This was mostly in the form of "knives", sharpened sticks with simple designs carved into the bark of the handles. (nothing fancy, but I was like 8 or 9 years old at the time) Later my skills improved. Just to the left of the hardware store is a representation of the peak of my stick carving efforts, an arrow I carved to bring to my Order of the Arrow (Boy Scouts) Ordeal weekend. The shaft, arrowhead, and feathers were all carved from one piece of wood. It turned out so well that I decided it was too nice to risk damaging it, so I carved a larger cruder version for the weekend. (a few years later, when my brother was going on his Ordeal weekend, he took my nice arrow rather than make his own, and sure enough, it got broken) Left of the arrow shows me in a typical camping scene in the woods, whittling. I decided to let one of the trees from the mall level grow up to become part of the woods, and let branches from the tree at the end extend into space outside the tower itself.

Still have to finish the right side of this level. That will definitely happen next time. Meanwhile, in addition to a detail view of the areas drawn today, I included an overall view of the whole drawing so far.