Friday, March 30, 2018

Painted Rocks Borderline



While strolling one morning, I spotted a line of painted rocks along a homeowner's sidewalk. (Charming!) I decided to record them, starting from the left-side marker limestone boulder and ending with the right-side boulder. Being an amateur videographer, I wasn't very steady in moving sideways. It might have been cool to put the camera inside a toy train and pull the train with "record" on.

I also took pix for size and distance info, using my measuring stick (size refs) and extended tape measure. The border measured over 27 feet. (View pixstrip at top.)

My YouTube video includes individual images of the rocks—48 painted ones and the limestones, followed by a 4X speed clip of my original recording. Note that several of the painted rocks have circular designs with numerous dots (mandala).

Rocks and Pebbles

I initially thought about using "rock" in the blog title, but also considered"pebble". What's a pebble, and how does it differ from a rock? Some answers might surprise you.
From the Straight Dope forum with topic title " How small is a pebble? how big is a boulder? ":
The Wentworth scale seems about right to me - clearly in a casual context, it's all down to local definition - for me, it would be something like:

Pebble: something small enough to conceal in my closed hand, crucially, worn smooth and rounded, or it's not a pebble. …

Boulder: Something big enough that I would struggle to carry, or would find altogether impossible to lift. Compact shape (or else it's a slab or something else) …
A commenter provided a link to Wikipedia's "Grain size". A table lists sizes in increasing order. The columns titled "Aggregate name (Wentworth class" and "Other names" lists descriptive categories (picky, picky, picky).

Painted Rocks Background

"Here’s Why Painted Rocks Are the Next Big Thing", published in May 2017, describes the recent origin of painted rocks, suggestions on how-to's, and distribution. "The idea is simple—paint something inspiring or cheerful on a rock, and leave it for someone else to find."

"The Kindness Rocks Project" is the heart of the origin, mostly emphasizing the founder's inspirations and messages. As you might infer, the painted rocks in my article and video have deviated far from messages and visual display. The homeowner had apparently painted and placed the rocks as decoration, aligning them to the sidewalk rather than leaving individual rocks for others to discover.

"The Kindness Rocks Project", uploaded August 22, 2016, includes scenes from a community group session of rock painters. The accompanying music is "Fire and the Flood" by Vance Joy.

Some Beginner-level DIY Painted Rocks Videos

2 comments:

Woody Lemcke said...

Thanks Wanda! Nice production, interesting medium and great creativity too. I really like your zooming in and shutter like transition. You were walking fairly steadily. I believe some use gyroscope steadied devices during movement but that's pretty exotic. Maybe sit in a wagon or anything with wheels and have someone else push or pull it?

whilldtkwriter said...

Thx for compliments! MS Movie Maker, which came free w/Windows 7, lets me use all sorts of effects. If I were to try to have a consistent speed as I traveled sideways, I'd think I'd prolly have required a motor.

The original recording was 3:12, and I created the 4X speeded-up clip to insert after the indiv painted rocks. (Did not want to subject viewers to the orig in real-time pace.) Precision Camera sells track setups.