In this lesson, we were looking at Metaphors and how it shapes our understanding when it comes to processing things.

For example the famous phrase, 'It's raining cats and dogs' is an example of Metaphors. It's not really raining cats and dogs but my mind automatically, gets the picture that it raining outside. Another good example would be ' It will brighten up your smile', everyone knows that a smile isn't anything like a light bulb something you can just switch out if it's bright enough for you but people automatically picture how much better a person face will be if they smiled. Another phrase that people like to see say is 'She's hot', that person isn't really hot in a literal sense but the word 'Hot' somehow tells your brain that, that person is attractive to look at.

After we got to grips with what a Metaphor is, we were than tasked to find quotes from our chosen book with a metaphors embedded in that one quote. My story, 'The Winner Stands Alone' by 'Paulo Coelho', is about a man who's current at the top of the success leader, he's got everything you ever wanted however he can't have what he truly wanted, and that is the women that left him for another man.

I used this site to locate good quotes from the book that chose.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/5424205-o-vencedor-est-s?page=3

Once I chose a quote that I know had a Metaphors in it, I than tried to portray it in a single illustration, I got some really interesting results.
The first illustration that I draw, which is at the top of the paper, was about what to do once you've clawed your way to the top, it really spoke to me because that point is usually the most critical point in most people lives, become it so easy to suddenly forget about the people who got you in there in the first place, about the people who opened the doors for you when nobody else did and believed that you could make it.

So I thought, why not a mountain and show a person struggled to the very top, to symbolise the struggle in life to get to the very top. The clouds in the sky are filled with people who have either made the same journey or were born with power and wealth, are now trying to help him up now.

But instead of taking that hand, my drawing shows the person running back to the very people who were there for him when he needed them the most, instead of going looking down on them because of the now lower status they had.

The illustration at the bottom was inspired by the two words 'Addition and Enslavement', I thought instantly why not have a person chained up? Even though the best thing to do in that situation is try to get those chains off, instead my person wants to put more chains on even though he knows he shouldn't, it's addiction. Those words sparked a memory in me. I was watching a T.V. show, it was displaying the houses of the rich and famous, and I remembered thinking how I wanted to own such a house and didn't really think what people had to go through just to get the money to afford a house like that. I was just so focused on the rosy picture in front of me, instead of the thorns hidden underneath.


This Illusion was inspired by the famous words, 'if you truly love something, set it free', when I thought about how I would portray this, I instantly thought about what if I start with a bird trying to flap it wings to fly? Than I started to draw a hand underneath it, it was than that I realised that I had subconsciously curly the hand, instead of flat, the hand was curled and positioned in such a way that it gave of a feel of care show and protectiveness towards the bird who is trying to fly but at the same time, it's not stopping the bird from flying off.



























This illustration was inspired by the worlds 'When a Person dies, something in the Universe dies' and I thought, how would I portray this? Well I started with a grave stone to show death, than I came to the hardest part, how to go about showing the effect on the universe from someone dying? It took me some time to think but the simplest way I could think of was to show a planet exploding, I googled a lot of planets exploding for inspiration, and how I got the person standing before a grave, I original planned to do the whole quote but in the end I thought it wasn't necessary but it does add a nice touch and provides more impact to the illustration.
Here is the link to the reference Image I used.
http://www.wall321.com/thumbnails/detail/20121112/outer%20space%20stars%20explosions%20planets%20dual%20screen%20destruction%20cosmos%20dust%20destroyed%204096x1536%20wall_www.wall321.com_30.jpg
 This illustration was inspired by the quote 'I am my own best friend and my own worst enemy', surprisingly enough, this came to me quite naturally, the quote took me back to a certain imagine I had seen years back. I was always interested the whole 'Angel and Devil' concept and thought it fit the words perfectly. I managed to fit the actual image that I used inspiration for this.

This quote was more truer for the character that was portrayed in Deviant portrait since he's always shifting between light and darkness.

Here is the link.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/In-Between-278000539

Now this illustration was interesting to do, the quote said 'There's always a way of allowing happiness in, but for that to happen, both partners have to acknowledge that something was wrong'. At first, I thought of having two people in the middle of a crossroad, each going different ways, one way would lead to happiness, the other one would lead to the way home, but I thought, What had that got to do with letting happiness in? So I changed that, and thought what if Happiness was a person? Than the idea developed from there. On the top scene Happiness is clearly trying to get in but the couple are fighting inside. The next scene Happiness is driven off by the same couple that were fighting seconds before.

I showed them standing so close together to give the impression that they are united, despite the huge fight they had seconds before, it's like the fight never happened, I could have done another illusion of them going back to the fighting after Happiness had long gone but I only thought about it just now.

This is the last illustration I did, in the quote, Paulo Coelho calls the people who are looking for Power 'Eternal Slave', this really spoke to me, I decided to do an illustration on that one word. I came up with a person journeying along a road however as you can see, that person is actually chained to the actual floor. The next half of the drawing is the same person by much further down the line, they are still chained. I now realise it might have been more effective if the other half of the drawing displayed the person's gravestone, still chained to the road to show that even in death, they are still chained.

This whole cycle was inspired by an image I came across years back, it showed spring and Autumn, as two sides of the same coin, it really looked interesting to look at,  and it just stood out for me, who know it would have thought it would aid me years down the line?