Day 17

'Man and Sword' Pen on Paper

Continuing on from my expedition to the Ulster Museum in search of some much needed inspiration over the weekend, today's drawing is of a figurine that can be found in one of the display cases. I only had a limited period of time at the weekend to get round the museum so all the photographs I took were of the things that instantly stood out to me. The figurine itself is carved from Ox bone, of Japanese origin and although small and unassuming for some reason it grabbed my attention after catching a glance of it whilst rushing through the museum. I find it strange how when we glimpse something in our periphery, no matter how subtly we catch it, it has the exact same effect each time of stopping you dead in your tracks in order to investigate... not only this but you could be completely focused on or engaged in carrying out another task and yet we still have to stop. This curiosity is a great thing but also has a habit of causing a lot of social ineptitude and embarrassment. The act I'm referring to is that thing we've all done where you recognise someone out of the corner of your eye and before taking the time to verify it is in fact them, you decide it would be a great idea to scream at he top of your lungs 'Yeeeeeeeeoooooh! what's the craic!'... only to realise a few seconds later that it's not the person you thought it was. So as you stand there fumbling over some sort of apology, your berry brown face highlighting the level of embarrassment that that particular exchange has caused, you can really appreciate the value of foresight. Actually only a few days ago on the way home from work someone pulled up alongside me, took the time to get out of his car before screaming 'KEVIN!!!' whilst standing about 2 metres away, his arms flailing and grinning like a buffoon. After a slight pause and without saying anything else he jumped back into his car and sped off, so still not sure if he actually mistook me for Kevin or he just really liked the 'Home Alone' movies and wanted to share his affection with complete strangers by bellowing out random quotes... either way it was quite surreal.