Wordsworth: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

--  William Wordsworth
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What's your story?

What makes you look so blue?
The way that you've been acting
I don't know what to do.

For complete lyrics, visit International Lyrics Playground.

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Stick to it

This quote

The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which comes with a sort of mastery.

by Janet Erskine Stuart, reminded me of this chart by Kathy Sierra (previously mentioned).



Which is right inline with: Mike Lynch's comments about getting better at drawing by drawing a lot, Denis McGrath's advice about getting better at writing by writing a lot, and of course Gladwell's "10,000-Hour Rule."

How to be a better ...

Mike Lynch, a magazine cartoonist, shares some insights from cartooning classes his post "Draw 160":

And that's what drawing is all about; acquiring the knowledge of how to draw. How do you draw a fish? A bird? a cool car? a poodle?

Sure, when you read those words you get a visual in your mind -- but how to train your hand to draw what you imagine?

By drawing a lot.

How do you get to be a better cartoonist?

There is the old piece of advice: take a stack of paper the same height that you are. Draw on every one. When you get to the bottom, you’ve gotten a lot of the bad drawings out of your system and you’re a better artist.

What's more, this doesn't just apply to drawing. (Well, perhaps the drawing on paper part of the instruction.) It fits nicely with McGrath's idea of it being his job to fail.

"I kind of look at it as -- it's my job to fail until I don't. You try something, fail, fail, fail, keep failing, and hopefully eventually you look at something and say, 'that's not a total failure' and then you nurture that little ember and follow it and hopefully you get somewhere."

It's right in line with Gladwell's "10,000-Hour Rule." ("No one gets to the top unless he or she puts in 10,000 hours of practice in a field, be it computer software, hockey, music, or law.")

Go visit Lynch's post. You're sure to be impressed (and entertained) by all the talented work by the students in his class!

And whatever your passion... go and practise. Now!


[h/t: Drawn.ca]

The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

Horray! How to be happy in business

A brilliant Venn Diagram by Bud Caddell of What Consumes Me.

[h/t: Joey deVilla]

PS22 Chorus Sings “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac

New York City PS22 elementary school chorus singing "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac.

In a school where more than three quarters of the students are eligible for free lunch, the lyrics of the song have resonance, and the performance is haunting, emotive, and delivered with far more soul than one might expect from a bunch of fifth-graders. As Breinberg plays, he makes eye contact with the kids, coaxing performances from them and letting them enjoy themselves. Later, Davoya, one of the chorus members, explains how he does it. "At first, when I sang, I had no emotion," she says. "I didn't move. But Mr. B taught me to sing with feeling. With feeling and heart."

Best of all Stevie likes it! YouTube link.

[h/t: Neatorama]

Bliss Notes: your guide to abundant living

Jen Lawrence, founder of (the now defunct) T.O. Mama and Dwell on These Things has just launched Bliss Notes ~ an online guide to abundant living.

Today marked the inaugural issue of Bliss Notes, discussing how to bring a little spring zen to your nest. (For those of you who missed it, apparently archives will be available on the Bliss Notes site on May 15th.)

What are you waiting for? Sign-up today!

Love it!

(And I'm slightly grumpy I didn't think of it first.) Randall Munroe rocks. (It's a four panel comic, if you can't read it all here, with your browser set to fullscreen, then go to the original site.)

Scribble-time

Like Adam, I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. A great way to pass the time when you're at a restaurant with crayons and brown paper tablecloths! (Especially with little ones in tow.)

Here’s a fun game to try: 1. Have someone draw a scribble. 2. Draw a picture based on said scribble. 3. Repeat

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Via Drawn

Egg-strodinary

So if you do a little digging you'll find that the photo shown to the left, taken by DPChallenge user "scalvert," isn't completely original. But really, there's so little "original" left out there to do!


It's still a brilliant idea executed with extraordinary attention to detail. Read about how scalvert did it at the DPChallenge site.



(via Neatorama)

I'm glad I'm not the mother

Ron Mueck creates extraordinary gigantic lifelike hollow sculptures. The one above is called "A Girl."

C-section, anyone?



View the more photos from his Flickr set. (via Neatorama)

Type the sky

It's not often I can say "I've never seen anyone try that before." Well, I've never seen anyone try this before!

This series of photographs, taken by German artist Lisa Rienermann won her the 2007 Award for Typographic Excellence. The piece is called "Type The Sky." She uses building silhouettes to spell out the ABCs.

Brilliant!

(via Neatorama)

Awesomely talented illustrator

Today I bring to your attention two of my favourite pieces by Michael Renouf of Non-Stick Plans. He's a wonderfully talented illustrator who has taken it upon himself to publish a drawing a day on his blog. He's been faithfully at it since April of this year!

This first one is something to which all parents of newborns can relate:

An Earful

And this one cuts straight to the chase:

Carbon Footprint

Links to orginal posts: An Earful, Carbon Footprint
Both images republished with permission from the artist.
Copyright owned by Michael Renouf.

Creative advertising: Mondo Pasta

A very clever ad campaign by Mondo Pasta.
[via Joey deVilla]

A Comic Strip Is Born.

Ever wonder how the creators of your favourite comic strips came up with the idea? Uncle John got curious and did some research. A few of the stories can be found at A Comic Strip Is Born (via Neatorama).

Trying To Fill the Hole

One sure clue as to whether we're being motivated by aspiration or expectation is that aspiration is always satisfying; it may not be pleasant but it is always satisfying. Expectation, on the other hand, is always unsatisfying, because it comes from our little minds, our egos. Starting way back in childhood, we live our lives looking for satisfaction outside ourselves. We look for some way to conceal the basic fear that something is missing from our lives. We go from one thing to another trying to fill up the hole we think is there.
~ Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

via Integral Options Cafe

Kathy Sierra on "How to be an expert"

[Edited to add a terrific example a the bottom of this post.]

On March 3 of 2006, Kathy Sierra wrote this terrific piece on "How to be an expert." (Which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.)

I love this chart that she made:



Favourite quotes from the article:

• It turns out that rather than being naturally gifted at music or math or chess or whatever, a superior performer most likely has a gift for concentration, dedication, and a simple desire to keep getting better. In theory, again, anyone willing to do what's required to keep getting better WILL get better.
  
• Maybe the "naaturally talented artist" was simply the one who practiced a hell of a lot more. Or rather, a hell of a lot more deliberately. Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, has spent most of his 20+ year career on the study of genuises, prodigies, and superior performers. In the book The New Brain (it was on my coffee table) Richard Restak quotes Ericsson as concluding:
  
  "For the superior performer the goal isn't just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That's why they don't find practice boring. Each practice session they are working on doing something better than they did the last time."
  
• So it's not just how long they practice, it's how they practice. Basically, it comes down to something like this:
  Most of us want to practice the things we're already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.
  
• And if the neuroscientists are right, you can create new brain cells--by learning (and not being stuck in a dull cubicle)--at virtually any age. Think about it... if you're 30 today, if you take up the guitar tomorrow, you'll have been playing for TWENTY years by the time you're 50. You'll be kicking some serious guitar butt. And if you're 50 today, there's no reason you can't be kicking guitar butt at 70. What are you waiting for?
  

Back to the drawing board for me!

--

via Neatorama:

Huang Xiaohu, a 32-year-old Chinese man trained himself to write 10 numerals simultaneously using 10 fingers.

Huang Xiaohu told to Beijing Times he acquired the special ability through countless practices. "I want to prove myself by doing something that others can’t do," he said.

"I have no special talent. I did it entirely by practicing."

Spray Paint Art

This fellow's got more control over a can of spray paint than I do over a 2B pencil!



Thanks to Joe for the link!

Al Hirschfeld on YouTube

Al Hirschfeld creates a Paul Newman caricature.

Thanks to Drawn.ca for the tip-off.