To my dear old friend Stan who lives in Cape Town whom I've known for 50 years.

Dear Old Timer

My brother Phil has asked me millions of times “How come Stan has lived for 97 years and seven months?” He goes on “Most of his peers pegged it at the end of the 19th Century!” My answers to his questions are always pretty much the same “He gets up at 5.30 am, drinks 5.7 litres of Hout Bay water (unfiltered) before anything else...sits down for 15 minutes and does gentle meditation on his prayer mat – facing east.”

And so we continue our conversation:

Jon “he then puts on his gym slip and raises his arms above his head and clasps his hands together in the Charles Atlas method of tension against tension. This is continued until his deltoids become much larger...he then proceeds down his body with this tension method to his toes. He then goes back to bed for an hour and rests. As he is already in his gym slip he goes for a very gentle walk to Hout Bay, about 100 yards, and chats to the local fishermen.”

Phil “Is that all, nothing more severe than that?”

Jon “No, no, there's a lot more to it than that.” I continue “The Hout Bay water and the walk stimulates his bowels and so he ablooots on arrival back home and cleans out all his intestines and colon...there is absolutely no crap left”

Phil: “Yes, I heard of that where cleansing the inside makes you feel wonderful especially after all the junk food we eat. I do recall our Uncle Graham eating almost every night what he used to call “sticky pudding” which consisted of sugar, saturated fats, mega doses of lard and other unmentionable stuff closely related to plastic. It must have surely glued his colon to his appendix!” “Remember the post-mortem guy saying he had solid waste akin to mortar in his colon weighing no less than 40 kg's! Amazing!”

Jon: “Yeah, I remember, he was a bit of an asshole though and quite insensitive saying that nasty stuff about Graham – he should have been a bit more subtle.”

Phil: “getting back to Stan, what did he usually eat which may have given him this longevity?”

Jon: “Gosh, I am not sure but I know he eats raw oats for breakfast will large dollops of honey, a bit of toast and downs the lot with coffee. Sometimes he does cook the oats but only when he has an spike in his energy levels. So it is basically doing a little exercise, sleeping about 12 hours a day and eating horse feed. The latter is probable one of the major contributors to longevity.

Phil: “Jeeeez, I could not do that, especially the horse feed!”

Jon: “There's another thing that is quite important. Stan is very much involved mentally with creating things like his model airplanes, he loves Sopwith models, the old De Havilland models and especially the German Messerschmidts – model 401K – a two seater fighter powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines. He used to joke say the British supplied the Germans with these engines to level the playing fields. Look Phil, I don't know if these ever flew or if they are just hanging above his bed as decorative ornaments BUT, it keeps the mind active which is important. “

Phil: “Well, I will certainly try some of his methods but it is great he has lived 97 years and still looks in his fifties, it is quite amazing.”

How To Begin Your Essential Drawing Skills

How to Begin Your Essentail Drawing Skills

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

These are the fundamentals of drawing from step one through to several intermediate steps, where drawing skills can be developed to master the art of drawing. Without knowing these basics, a drawing will lack rhythm and style.

Steps

1. Some of these initial steps may appear to you far too basic, but try them anyway because it may lead you to discover other aspects you can use whilst developing your drawing skills.
   
2. You've probably heard many times “I can't even draw a straight line” and a straight line is rather mechanical so use a ruler if you want straight lines. The important thing about lines in a drawing is direction as all lines go in specific directions—or multiple directions--to give character to a drawing.
   
3. All paintings have form, value (light to dark), tone and color. If you strip all these away you are left with an outline of the forms with lines surrounding colors and values. So now you are left with a two-dimensional outline drawing. You can look at these as “boundary marks” which run in all directions. Some of them will be fairly straight and others curved.
   
4. Accuracy is less important than a sense of direction and that means varying distance and space between your lines especially angular forms. Without these in place your drawing will lack rhythm and structure.
   
5. Another important point about lines is they must have sensitivity which is the thickness or thinness in which your lines are drawn. Putting more pencil pressure on your paper gives a thicker or thinner line, a lighter or darker line. You will find in most beginners a lack of this sensitivity.
   
6. To start your line drawings, draw many lines flowing in all directions on your paper. Your lines should go from very light which you will obtain by pressing very lightly, to the darkest line where your pressure is very heavy—not too heavy that it breaks the lead. For these effects use a medium pencil, not too hard (HB) or too soft (4B) but something in between. Always, always keep you pencils sharp for crisp, clean lines.
   
7. Let's start off by putting together items you have around the house that are straight. A mug, a broomstick, a few books. Lean the broomstick against the table or bookcase so you have a few angles to play with. Get your angles correct by comparing one angle to the next.
   
8. Look for the negative shapes, that is not the actual shape of the object itself but the shapes between the objects. By comparing these, you will discover your drawing will be quite accurate. Follow along on WikiHow for how to develop more basic drawing skills.
   

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Begin Your Essentail Drawing Skills. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.