VISUAL DIARY Project @ HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center.6 6/03/2021

 

HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center

VISUAL DIARY Project

Blog 6 6/03/2021

Today’s Visual Diary class is all about objects we hold in our hands, so we began with a warmup exercise imagining just that. Participants closed their eyes and imagined an object in their hands, feeling its weight, texture, shape and size. When ready they each mimed using the object as the rest of the class guessed what it was. Lao Yu wore a pair of eyeglasses, Sook Fong washed her face, Pun cut an avocado, Julisa tossed a hot potato from hand to hand, Ru Ping texted a message on her phone, Jing Wei read a book, Hui Fen brushed her hair and Stella used a microphone to sing karaoke.

The quality of our seniors’ work continues to astound, and we take great pleasure in sharing their homework each week so we and the students can offer comments. Susanna drew two hands with a small child in between dressed in red, which really drew focus; “Don’t worry I’ll catch you”. “No, no,” cried the child. Sook Fong used two hands to draw the symbol of love and a fist with a caption against Anti-Asian hate. The pencil lines on her drawing really added texture to the hands. So Sim drew two figures practicing tai Chi and captured their hand gestures in two larger drawings. Her dialogue featuring hands was between a parent and child, “I finished my homework. Can I play?”. “Be safe when crossing the road and be back for dinner”. In reply she drew the gesture for OK. Julisa’s cooking is renowned at Bensonhurst Senior Center and So Sim acknowledged this by drawing a thumb up gesture. 

Ru Ping documented the placement in age of each of her siblings with the gestures for one, two and three. Pun drew a V for victory gesture and included the thought, happiness for all as we fight the virus. Her second image depicted hands in prayer accompanied with, “Safety and health for everyone.” Even though Miu cannot join us in person she submits her homework each week and by sharing it we feel like she is with us. Her four drawings were of a fist, warning, “see how big my fist is”, thumbs up, two hands joined, and two fingers crossed in the gesture of love. Lao Yu gestured thank you 谢谢你, Xièxiè nǐ by drawing the two-handed gesture. She also drew the universal thumb up and OK gestures from different perspectives. 

Julisa offered good wishes with the gesture for, “Kung Hei Fat Choy”. “Hope for world peace”, a gesture was drawn with the index finger and little fingers up and the two middle fingers down. She depicted requesting a lucky red envelope by drawing an open palm and a money symbol. “Thankyou”, a new hand gesture to me, had the thumb extended and movement represented by dotted lines and arrows. Julisa documented a new gesture popularized amongst young Asians to say, “I love you”, with the thumb and first finger. In comparison she also drew the more traditional two-handed gesture. Her children played the rock, paper and scissors game to see who got the Captain’s Seat, in the front of the car. She cleverly drew this dialogue. 

Jing Wei told us she uses a mirror to see what her hands look like from different angles. This method is profitable with her excellent drawings of love gestures. By adding small red hearts in the dialogue bubble, she reinforced the meaning. Hui Fen drew two hands shaking, accompanied by the dialogue, “Long time no see. How are you?” “Very good, thank you”. Her drawings featured a hand offering a red rose, “I wish you well” and in response the victory gesture, “tomorrow will be better.”

Offering the perfect segue into drawing an object, seniors found a few different everyday objects they could hold in their hand and draw. Listening to music we all focused on our drawings. As reference we shared images of different types of hands; those of elderly people, men, women, children, babies and of different ethnicities. Further we shared drawings of famous hands, such as Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” and Albrecht Durer’s praying hands. Norman Rockwell’s art showed how he used hands to portray different emotions and send messages. 

To add to their Visual Diary our students will think of a hand holding an object and what the moment means to them. They will include a thinking or dialogue bubble to accompany their hand with object drawing. We look forward to seeing their homework!