Just Being Silly

I reached into my bag of blocks this morning and pulled out another weird form — it’s like a cone that’s had its top sliced off at an angle. Now, there is such a thing as a “truncated” cone, also known as a frustrum, but this isn’t neatly chopped off at the top. It’s sliced at an angle — about a 45-degree angle, I would say.

I did find an image online, and this form is also referred to as a “truncated” cone, so there you go. Now we both know. Maybe you already knew this terminology. It was new to me.

I’ll admit I didn’t have much luck drawing this truncated cone, although had I stopped to think of it as a cone first, I might have done better. I do like drawing cones. But that missing slice really threw me off.

After about 3 attempts, I had created an image that was quite out of proportion. My attempts at shading were a mess — forget that whole idea of breaking things down into three distinct areas of value! I just had a big mess.

But what I was looking at reminded me of a Russian matryoshka doll — you know the kind that nest inside one another. That was how this odd shape/form appeared in my addled brain. So, why not have a little fun with it?

I added a face, a few body parts, and then went to my “Paint” program on the computer to fill in a splotchy red background. Yep, just being silly, but sometimes that’s what we need to do.

My block-drawing practice didn’t fare too well this morning, but, that’s how it goes at times. Instead of feeling frustrated and disappointed, I just turned my odd-looking block image into something that made me smile.

Now, I’m ready to have a good day.