I am drawing a portrait that may be a self portrait. I have been working on the drawing in the hotel after my training. I never know where a drawing is going until after I finish it. this drawing depicts a male with dreadlocks and a checkered shirt. I started the drawing on Wednesday and I worked on it Thursday after class from about 4:00 PM until 2:00 AM on Friday morning.
This is the second portrait that I have done in recent years. I have a limited arsenal of things that I like to draw that can be easily recognized in my art, but portraits of humans is one that I like. Usually my drawings are so abstract that they mainly consist of wild blends of color that leave the viewer with the task of figuring out what they are looking at. That is the main goal of my drawings, I want to draw nothing that the viewer has seen before and at the same time draw something that allows the viewer to feel that they see something in the drawing that is familiar.
Drawing a self portrait is something that I have not done in a long time. I think that the last time that I drew one it was a pen and ink drawing and I may still have it. My hair is about as long as it was when I was in my twenties back in the 1970’s. I believe that artist draw themselves for several reasons. One reason is that they want to continue to explore how to creat art from the human face. Another reason is that they want the viewer to see how the artist sees temselves. Currently I have chosen to draw myself because I am at a point in my life when I feel very peacful and confident with my being me.
Happy in being me does not mean that my life is a bowl full of cherries. There are several aspects of my life that I would like to transform, but for the essence of my being I am confident enough to sit in a room and draw a portrait of myself and like it. There is a saying that you have to get up each day and look your self in the mirror. When I talk about looking at yourself in the emirror and drawing yourself I am not in the realm of vanity. I am looking at myself in the realm of self awareness and confidence that I am who I creat and that my possibilities that I create are real and possible.
Who am I? I am a problem solver. I have always solved problems for hire and other people’s problems before my own. I have solved computer problems with a vengeance. Listed below are answers to a problem that I will solve on my truck. My possibility is to create my ideal truck. I have always envied folks who have taken the time to express themselves with the vehichel that thy drive. I waited until my old Toyota was dead and gone to pain it. I told myself that I would wait until it was too old to sell and then play with it. Well the waiting game does not cut it. I want to have fun with my truck while it is still running. I will always keep this truck running.
Anyway here is the information and technical reasons for dual wheels that are larger and look cool. BTW, my truck has 17 inch rims with 8 bolts. The conversion to a 10 bold will require an adapter plate. This company is in Houston.
http://www.chromewheel.com/dominator.htm
Top Ten reasons to convert to the Big Wheels!
#1: Most 4×4’s are only available with high ratio gearing, and most traffic on our nation’s interstate highways moves at an average cruising speed between 70 and 80 mph.
#2: When equipped with 16″ tires, the operating efficiency is out of range at those highway speeds. For instance, in a diesel truck, the ideal operating rpm range for efficiency is usually between 1800 and 2200 rpm, and most factory truck engines will turn between 2400 and 3000 rpm at those speeds. This increases engine wear and decreases fuel economy. There is a similar situation with gasoline engines.
#3: The overall height of a typical 16” tire on a 4×4 is about 30 inches. 245/70×19.5″ tires are 33” tall and 255/70×22.5″ tires are 36″ tall. Using the larger tires will reduce rpm by 10 to 20 percent.
#4: Most vehicle owners are only getting a practical 25,000 miles from their tires before seeing decreased tire performance. For premium tires, that’s a $1,000 bill every 25,000 miles.
#5: Most operators will get about 80,000 to 100,000 miles of wear with 19.5” tires. 22.5” tires will usually give 200,000 miles of satisfactory performance.
#6: If you check with tire manufacturers, you will find that their tires have a four-year casing warranty. Even if you were to put 500,000 miles on these tires in four years, having had them re-capped as necessary, the warranty would still be valid.
#7: The ride comfort using the larger tires is better than the little 16” tires because of their larger diameter and footprint.
#8: In the average life of your truck you may buy 6 to 10 sets of tires at about $1,00000 a set. In addition, the lower rpm will reduce wear on your truck. When considering the cost of replacing your truck, these savings average about $10,00000 or more.
#9: You save fuel because you are now operating in the ideal performance range of the vehicle. This could save you between $1,000 and $3,000. This initial investment now could save you approximately $20,000 over the life of your vehicle, provided you made the change early.
#10: The Big Wheels and tires really look GREAT on your truck!
Sometimes I wonder what a super hero thinks when he or she wakes up eack morning. I was driving to work this past week and I started imagining what a super hero thinks when he wakes up each day.
Each day he knows that someone will need his help and he will have to solve a life threating situation at the last minute. Does he dread this or does he just accept that way things are?
I have the same way of being when I go to work at Huston-Tillotson University. I use to complain about the way things were. now I take complete responsibility for my actions and I am prepared to create from nothing a solotion to any problem that I may face.
This was a very interesting month. I created a new web site and logo for Elite Land Works. I dusted off my Wacom tablet and converted a sketch that I had drawn into a digital logo for the company web site. I drew the logo while I was assisting a Landmark Education Advanced Course (LEAC). During this LEAC I really got a chance to re-discover my act.
My act is “Don’t tell me what to do, I can handle it!” The birth of my act is when I was about 5 years old and I was in the car waiting for my dad to close the garage door. I pushed in the cigarette lighter and then put my finger inside of the hot element. My dad said, ” Don’t you know if you play with fire you will get burned?” That was the birth of my act. Ever since then my act has been setting up my view of the world so that I can say “Don’t tell me what to do, I can handle it!”Â
When I did the Landmark Education Advanced course I had the realization that my act was controlling a lot of how I was being in life. I articulated this fact in my sharing by telling the group that dealing with my act was like I was in a car riding in the back seat and there was a drunk at the wheel. After being exposed to the Landmark Education Advance I am able to notice when my act is in control and I fight my way to the front seat and take control.
So now I am in a seminar on relationships. This morning I was reflecting on how my relationship with my act was going. My act is that I am stupid. My act filters a lot of what I perceive to be as what is so. If I use the analogy of the car I can now say that I am driving the car most of the time and my act is in the back seat. My act is always going to be there but I can see what it is and make a choice to listen to if or ignore it.
I can now see that a lot of barriers in my relationships are created when I pretend to be stupid so that I do not have to take responsibility for the direction the relationship is going. I realize that being related and 100% responsible affects all aspect of my life. For example I have invented the possibility of being an artist. I have struggled with being an artist because I have struggled with being related. How can an artist be fully expressed when he struggles with being related?
Being fully self expressed and living an invented life is what I am being. I realize that the only barriers that prevent me from having anything that I want in my life are the ones that I create.