Helicopters and Gnomes: Soaring Above the Clouds in a Collage for LMAC #99
We are at Round #99 of the LMAC contest!! Very exciting as we head toward the 100th edition of this collage challenge, coming up in just a few days. What fun I had in designing this week's picture.
It all started with @shaka's magical template photo:
I knew I was going to put @quantumg's gnome (borrowed from the #LIL Gallery) in the collage.
The story in my collage evolved from that. I will explain more about the evolution later. Right now, I want to talk about helicopters.
How many times have we seen helicopters flying around? A lot. And yet, do we, do I, understand how they stay up there? I do now, sort of.
Here's a brief explanation:
They are held up by air. Really. Just air, but air that is directed so that helicopters, and airplanes, benefit from 'lift'. The airplane generates lift through movement and the design of the craft. Air moves over the top of the plane faster than it moves under the plane. The faster air moves, the less pressure it exerts on a surface. Therefore, the slow moving air under the plane exerts more pressure than the fast moving air over the plane. It is this pressure from slow moving air that keeps the plane aloft.
Lift is based on something called Bernoulli's Principle. While Bernoulli worked with liquids, the same principle applies to air because air 'flows'.
Illustration of Bernoulli's Principle
Image credit: L3 PAE. Used under CC 3.0 License. Note the paper rises as air is blown rapidly over the top.
In the case of a helicopter, lift is created by the rotation of the helicopter blades. If the blades stop rotating, the helicopter falls out of the sky. And, if a plane stops moving, it falls out of the sky. In both cases, the craft cannot stay aloft without lift.
Bernoulli's Principle is also at work when the roof blows off a building during a hurricane. Rapidly moving air across the top of the roof allows the pressure under the roof--in the house--to build and blow the roof off. A gust of wind sometimes adds a little push.
Roofs Blown Off Buildings in Pensacola Florida During Hurricane Ivan
Image credit: U.S. Navy photo by Harry White. Public domain
Planes and helicopters change direction by altering the direction of airflow. Here is a GIF that illustrates how a plane changes direction, merely by alternating airflow over the wings. The little apparatus that is moving up and down in the GIF is called an aileron.
Aileron Roll
Image credit: Nancy Hall from NASA's Glenn Research Center. Public domain.
Changing the direction of a helicopter takes skill. The pilot has to adjust the blades on the tail, and/or individually adjust the main rotor blades (overhead).
Performing Repairs on a Helicopter's Main Rotor Blades
Image credit: Tequask. Public domain
First I isolated the part of the house I wanted to work with.
Then I decorated the house with flowers I had drawn in past years, for a book I had written.
I knew I wanted the house to be on clouds so I borrowed @louis88's clouds from the #LIL Gallery.
I wanted a gnome on the roof so I borrowed a ladder from the #LIL Gallery. This is a ladder I had contributed a few weeks ago.
Finally, I wanted a helicopter. Thank you, @amilcar14 for the helicopter.
Now it was simply a matter of placing a gnome on the helicopter and timing the movements of the different elements. It worked out pretty much the way I planned it, which is unusual.
I don't compete in the contest. I love the contest. As the 100th birthday approaches, I look back and think of what I didn't know when I made my first collage. I think of all the the people I didn't know, and have met since then. LMAC is a gift to me and to many others. Now we have a library that will benefit our community and all of Hive.
Please contribute to LIL, and help this vibrant part of Hive to grow. Rules and procedures are explained in this blog by @shaka. The rules for the collage contest are explained in this blog, by @shaka. If you have any questions, or you just want to say, "Hello", you can find us at our Discord channel.
Finally, keep an eye open for next week's collage contest. We have a special edition planned. Coming soon in your LMAC community.
Looking at your wonderful artwork, I could literally feel the fun you had creating it.
Great! 😎
Thank you my friend @muelli! Yes, I was smiling as I worked with these little fellows. Always have fun, whenever possible.
I hope you are having fun, also.
Me encanta su collage. Maravillosa obra
Thank you, @zenai. @shaka offered us such a wonderful house. I see amazing, magical collages coming in. This collage was great fun to make.
I appreciate your visit and your kind words.
🙏🙏
I love it @agmoore
Could it be fair to say that these Gnomes have a 'gnome away from gnome' in the clouds that is safe from a burglary... 'Gnome Alone' type situation?
Gr8, fun collage. I like the way you animated the helicopter as well 👍 I always have problems with gifs trying to make them small enough to upload to hive.
😅
Thank you! The gnomes, the house, all of it fit into a childlike fantastical image. Although, when my daughter saw the collage she thought the gnomes looked like terrorists getting ready to launch an attack from the sky. Dark times we live in :))
As for uploading GIFS: I've had to redo mine several times because they were too large. What I do now is make sure all frames are jpg and the collage dimensions are not larger than 3 or 4 inches on one side (300 resolution), depending on how long the other is and on how many frames there are. That usually works. Requires focusing in more narrowly on action rather than offering a large scene sometimes. It's a tradeoff.
I'm going to learn how to do 3speak. Seems intriguing and I have ideas. Another goal. Always another goal on Hive.
Ha ha, this made me laugh because at first I got the same associations... as you say it is a sign of the times.
Yeah, it opens up extra creative options (even for artistic posts) having the space restrictions removed due to the video format. Check out this poetry reading where I made a kinda psychedelic video animation. Just to show you the extra possabilites video can open up :)
Thank you, @raj808. There was a time I couldn't use Markdown. There was a time I couldn't format a picture. There was a time I couldn't animate a collage. I will learn how to upload the videos on 3-Speak. Just another step in my journey....
Hi @agmoore beautiful collage. I like that your entries are always loaded with theory and science. That imbues more weight and result to your collage. The animation is spectacular. Wow, wow, congratulations.
Thank you very much. I like writing content. I'm actually more of a writer than an artist. This community allows me to blend my new skill (making collages) with my old skill.
I really appreciate your kind words. They mean a lot.
Wow A.G @agmoore! This is a wonderful creation with the magical house in the clouds, the gnomes and the animated helicopter is the icing. Love how you have the helicopter moving.
Hello my friend, @redheadpei. I had so much fun with this. @quantumg's gnomes are irresistible. I love their feet. I love their caps. And when I saw that house, boom! It came to me.
Thank you very much for the kind words and for visiting my blog.
Hello friend, excellent explanation of the way helicopters and planes are kept in the air, all this is pure physics, all your collages have important information. I congratulate you, excellent collage.
Hello my friend, @cetb2008. Your kids might like this collage. It is fantastical. Thanks for the comment on my little physics lesson. I never heard of Bernoulli's Principle before. I found it fascinating. These collages are excuses for me to sort of go back to school. Every week I learn something new.
Thank you for visiting and for your kind words. Please enjoy the week with your beautiful family.
If my friend is a didactic collage to learn about physics and art of course
I'm looking at your collage and I'm freaking out. Bravo, excellent!
Thank you very much. I had fun making this. It's wonderful when we can make ourselves chuckle.
I appreciate your visit and kind words.
Hi @agmoore fun and creative collage. I really like the animation. Great ingenuity. Spectacular the entrance through the door. Congratulations
I'm glad you liked that entrance. I almost left it out and now can't imagine the scene without it.
Thanks so much for you kind words. I just looked at yours. Magical, graceful.
It's just like a little cartoon and very well animated, moreover. The way you did the door sequence, brilliant! I watched it for a while, and still love it. :-D
You've excelled yourself once again with this one, in terms of creativity, effort, skills and fun factor.
And it's a fantastic intro to the very interesting education part of your post, which, of course, I enjoyed reading! :-)
Thank you my friend, @quantumg. I almost left the little fellow on the roof. But, as you suggest, the story would not have been complete. He had to come down and join the other little fellows.
I love your (dwarfs?) (gnomes?) The are like little toys. Great for the imagination.
I appreciate your comment. It's obvious I had fun, isn't it?
Wonder what I'll do this week. What everyone will do. Should be amazing. The door is open to whatever the mind can cook up.
This is a very good question! Which you should rather not have asked me, because it is exactly one of my most favorite topics. xD
Gnomes and dwarves are actually two completely different species.
The gnomes are small humanoid creatures that live underground and are extremely antisocial and not very smart. In short, little grumpy and stupid earth dwellers. They rather represent the wildness of nature, as they behave impulsively and instinctively. So in terms of behavior they have more in common with the trolls.
However, gnomes, like dwarves, belong to the so-called magical creatures.
Unfortunately, they hate humans. It is said that this is why they always hide from us.
Dwarves usually live in the mountains, often inside mountains. They are considered quite sociable and even very intelligent. The old Germanic gods often sought advice by the dwarves and even had their powerful weapons created by them. Much more, there are even mythological reports of interspecies affairs between gods and dwarves.
Dwarves, therefore, do not rank as poorly as gnomes in the myths. They stand for rationality and order and are considered engineers and master thinkers.
I love dwarves!
The creature from my LIL contribution is actually a dwarf. I use to mix both terms myself as well, because everyone does. This is probably the result of a generalized portrayal in many modern fairy tale adaptations.
By all appearances, very much! :-)
Thank you for that wonderful exposition. I am a fan of myth and legend. These are keys to a culture's history and essential nature. So this really was an interesting read for me.