Daily Dose of English 89
Wall Art
Daily Dose of English 89
Intermediate
Hey, everyone. My name is Ben and you're listening to A Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You could find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about wall art, or art you can put on the wall. I think there's actually a better name for this. We don't really call it wall art in day-to-day speech, but I couldn't really think of anything else to call it. What I'm talking about is the stuff that you put on the wall of your house or your apartment or wherever you're living to make it more interesting to look at. because most walls are a single color. Maybe there's two colors in a single room, but they're a little bit boring without other stuff in them. And that's where you come in, the person that's living there. You can put stuff on the walls to make it look a little more interesting. And wall art is cool because there is so much different stuff that you can do with it. You can get very creative, you can keep it simple, you can make it yourself, you can find somebody who does it for you. There's a lot of different options. And I wanna talk a little bit about the art that I have, what I would like, and what other things that I've seen that are kind of cool. So we'll start with the sorts of things that I have on my walls, which are relatively simple. In my office, there's not a ton of wall space, so I don't really have much. I have other things in the room to make it more interesting, like a bookshelf and stuff on shelves. But in other parts of my apartment, I have a couple of different things. One of my favorites is actually there are some Lego sets that are actually like little, like you make paintings out of Legos. Because I used to love Legos as a kid, and I don't really have time to, or collect them or play with Legos as an adult, but I still think they're really cool. And so I saw these Lego pieces of artwork, essentially, and bought a couple. They're not too expensive, especially compared to other Legos and actual artwork. And so it's a nice middle ground where I get to do something fun and build this thing, and then put it on my wall to add some color and some interest. I have two of these. There aren't actually that many. You can find them online. I think there's like five or six different ones. But I have the Great Wave, which is a very famous Japanese painting. that I'm sure you've seen somewhere before. It's very, very famous. It's very cool. And the Lego art looks pretty good. It definitely looks like that piece. You can tell what it is. It has the same colors. It looks very obviously like a wave. And I really like it. And then I also got the world map. And this is a very large map of the world that has all of the different continents and parts of the world. And then the oceans are in these interesting colors that are, I don't know what they're based on, but it's a very colorful version of the map. It took me a very long time to build because it is, there's a lot of parts to it. It's actually one of the largest Lego sets in terms of number of pieces because there are so many individual tiny little dots. Each section of the map took me about 15 minutes to make and there were like 40 of them. which means that it took me like 10 hours to build at least, and I was only doing maybe 15, 30 minutes a day for a couple months. And I took some breaks and I went back to it. It's pretty cool, it looks very cool at the beginning. There are some issues with it, like it's not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. It's not a great map, like the continents look a little bit strange. But I think they did a pretty good job at converting the world to Lego, like a world map to Lego. Yes, it could be better, right? It's not perfect. It's there's a little bit of but I try. I don't think about that, right? It was fun to make. I think it looks nice and I don't look at it as like a map that often. So whatever. I did have a real map, like a big National Geographic detailed world map many years ago in my high school bedroom. My parents don't live there anymore, so I don't even think we have that map anymore. But I did really like having that on my wall. It was a really cool, really large piece to put on a wall and fills lots of space. And I definitely am a fan of maps on walls. They look really cool. In fact, what my parents do have is a humongous map of Oregon, our home state where we're from. And that's one of the things that I said that I want from the house. Most things that are in their house and like from my childhood, I don't really need, I don't want. It's just more stuff, it's whatever. But I did say that there are two things that I want for whenever they're They're going to move or get rid of stuff or whatever. And the first thing is that giant map of Oregon. It's got to be like two meters by one meter, the entire thing. It's got a beautiful wooden frame. It's very big. It's got everything in Oregon. It's very detailed. It's super, super cool. I definitely really like that map. And the other thing that I want is not wall art, but it's the old piano, the old, really simple, basic piano that belonged to my mom's mom, I think, like my great grandma. Yeah, it's from my mom's side of the family. But it's a simple stand-up piano, so it's pretty small. And that's the piano that I learned to play piano on. And I think I would really like to have that. Even if it is very expensive to move somewhere, I kind of don't care. It's not one of those things that has a monetary value to you because it has other sentimental value. Anyways, getting on to other wall art. Other things that I have in my apartment are just sort of blankets. Like I have this, it's not really a blanket. It's more like a tapestry thing. It's a combination of different like colored patches sort of put together. And things like that can make for really simple ways to add color to a wall or to a room. I actually have another one that I use as like a curtain for a window, which is also really nice. And so if you are in desperate need of some color for a wall, a big just cloth thing that looks kind of cool can be a good way to do that quickly and relatively cheaply. Another thing that I have is actually the art from a card, like a card game card, that's a large version, a print. It's a magic card, and I found it at an event, and I bought it from the artist, and I really like it. Because the art in that game, in Magic the Gathering, I think I've mentioned it before, is very good. It's beautiful, it's intricate, it's complicated in lots of artistic ways. It's really cool. And so I have some of that. I'm still looking to get more if I find cool other prints in other places, but I haven't found them yet, so we'll see. But I do like that piece. That's pretty much all that I have in my apartment on my wall. There's not a ton of space, and I don't have a ton of stuff to put up, so that's about it. But other common things that people put up are paintings, right, real paintings that they buy or they get prints of or whatever. Paintings are really cool ways to add different kinds of interest, because there's so many different kinds of paintings. Something that I find really interesting, that I've only met one person who does this, but he likes to buy paintings from one artist. He found this artist that he really likes, and he buys a lot of his paintings. He basically supports this artist. This person is a little bit wealthier, and they have the disposable income to buy a lot of art and support an artist, but I thought that was really cool. And so if someday that I have plenty of money, I would like to do that and find artists that I know and like and support their work and get art on my walls that is more connected rather than just random. And it's not like it's like really expensive million dollar artwork pieces. Um, which is also really cool, right? Instead of showing off your billion dollar, uh, Monet or whatever, you're showing the art of somebody that, you know, in support, which I think is cool. A lot of other people like to put up pictures of family members or friends or posters. Posters are a big one. Posters are of movies, of TV shows, bands, just random things. There's lots of cool posters that you can put up in your room to sort of show what you're interested in. I've never been a big poster person, but I know that they're pretty popular and lots of people do like them. And yeah, so that's all that I have for this episode. It's been about 10 minutes. So I'm gonna ask you to share down in the comments. What do you have on your walls? What is your favorite kind of wall art or wall? interesting thing to look at And so I look forward to your comments, but as usual, thank you very much for listening to this episode I hope that you would enjoyed and you maybe learned a word here or there and I'll see you again tomorrow for another episode. Have a good one. Bye!
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