Mildly grotesque
faces are awesome.
But since everyone around me is beautiful (you’re welcome) I sometimes use a distort filter on a photo and then use that photo for inspiration. Then add wrinkles, moles, etc. Let’s hope the original for this one doesn’t recognize himself. :)
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Galati was a very different city. I wish I could have seen it before half of it was demolished and covered in smokestacks.
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No one could say no to Albrecht Dürer and yet he said whatever he wanted, filled with a childish curiosity that made you wonder if he himself was aware of the power of his confidence. He was. He was born to be himself.
That’s what separated him from the rest.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.When you can’t find the right words…
Don’t blame the paper, it’s blank. Don’t blame the pencil, it’s just doing its job at minimum wage. But the eraser, uninvited and bourgeois, you could do without.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Notebooks, great and small.
Can a notebook be great? Of course it can. Girls will know of all those journals we bought when we were younger, just cause we liked ‘em, not that we were going to fill them up with something awesome. I rarely ever did, but when I did, it was amazing. And I do think the notebook has a lot to do with it.
The notebook of Hemingway …
Moleskine claims Hemingway used their notebook … he didn’t. I could get into the history and the source of their claims but it would be a bore. Moleskin as a company didn’t exist until much later. And the greats – Oscar Wilde, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse and others – used nameless notebooks made by Parisian manufacturers. Rumor has it .. the construction wasn’t all that great and they were cheap and easy to carry around.
Moleskine is sort of like that except it’s not cheap. I really like the thinness. The cardboard cover leaves much to be desired, but the rounded edges and many sizes and types makes up for it. Moleskine as a brand is not the ideal, but the size and shape is. If anyone knows where I can find similar thin notebooks for cheaper, let me know. I don’t think Moleskine has any significant paper quality over the average drawing pad.
Most notebooks these days are way too big, and unless you spend your whole day at a desk, they are pointless. Inspiration strikes at random. My notebook is next to me most of my day. This means when I want to draw I can. When I hear a song lyric that makes me think, I can write it down. When I need to record something, I can. While most of these things can be done via smartphone now, I still think drawing is important enough to me that I should strive to have my notebook on me 100% of the day.
So, key points:
1. make it thin.
You’ll use them up faster but you’ll end up with a lovely collection this way. If you lose it, you only lose a bit of your thoughts and scribbles, yay!
2. small enough to be carried everywhere.
Pocket size is awesome. Also make sure it’s not too heavy, so a thick cover is a no-no.
3. Don’t stress over paper quality.
Make sure it doesn’t fall apart but the notebook is not a final product, so the materials don’t need to be top notch. If they’re top notch, you’re less likely to take it everywhere.
Lastly, have a pencil on you. If you prefer pens, I really like Space Pens. I got a Space Pen as a gift and it’s one of my favorite pens, but it’s so expensive I’m scared to carry it around everywhere. It’s on a necklace, but sometimes it comes loose. So, cheapness comes in handy. Don’t let the cumbersomeness of losing things get in the way of your notebook’s constant presence. If you lose it, let it go.
Rules are meant to be broken and things are meant to be lost.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Is there anything cooler than the Lagoon Nebula?
Nope.
It’s like he just discovered ice cream legos, or got a new bike in the shape of a velociraptor or … he just saw the Lagoon Nebula. Excitement! I hope my kids love space and dinosaurs as much as I did. Spoiler alert. A lot.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.I love what you’ve done to the place
The SM building is a mix of new murals and old photos of the universe from the 70s. No need to update the posters, or to get rid of Pluto. It’s a haphazard mix of overlapping eras of science. It makes me feel small in relation to the big galaxies as well as small in history. We look backwards but all we are is this tiny slice of time.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Losing your computer is kind of like a near death experience
You start thinking about the things you planned to do but never did. You remember programs you recently installed and didn’t use.
After the frustration of your newfound limitations subside, the regrets set in. The things I should have coded, the designs that should already be done. But I also remember the things I’ve done. The last few months I’ve been doing 2 drawings with my Wacom tablet per day on average. Now I’m limited to pencil and paper and blogging on a little phone.
Eventually the regrets pass away too and you’re left with plans of productivity. Maybe sometimes its good to cut off a limb and see what the world is like with limits. When your limits are removed, you’re like a spring released. At least I hope. I haven’t gotten a new computer yet. Although my phone is basically a computer. Especially for the time wasting stuff. I really miss drawing in illustrator. I miss tweaking my blog into eternity. I miss coding. I miss the working part of my computer, not the entertainment part.
That’s kind of scary. I’ve never been type A. I probably never will be but I’m leaning in that direction at a fast pace.
And yes I do realize I compared my computer to a limb. Don’t judge me. Or do.
I severely want to get things done.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Vermilion Shades
These are probably 30 years old, definitely over 20. Made in China and imported to Romania. My favorite part is that one of the colors is called “indian red”. Shows how far we’ve come (even though this was printed in China.) It’s also interesting how the brand is a western name in latin letters, but a lot of the information is written in Han (i assume) characters.
Fun fact I first started painting with tiny little oil paints made in China in lead containers. I guess the question is did I get lucky or would I otherwise be much smarter?
8)
Are English courses becoming too roundabout?
English is my second language, so I have a special appreciation for English courses. I take excellence in writing very seriously. It’s the stuff I’m not supposed to be good at that I want to be good at – math because I’m female, science because I’m creative, English because I’m an immigrant. I’m a bit pigheaded in that way.
If I get asked to write a 3-4 page paper, I write a five page paper and make the text slightly smaller for it to fit four pages. Additionally, I go above and beyond with vocabulary, create an easily-readable structure and insist on arresting descriptions. (If my descriptions don’t send you to jail, we’ve got a problem.) I love writing: I love creative writing and I love research papers. I love any opportunity where I can construct something from the ground up that can represent me and my abilities. So it’s not like me to complain about a writing assignment. I am taking an English course right now, and even though I’m a very active participant in the class, there is something that’s starting to bother me. It goes something like:
Okay, class! Let’s write a summary of this summary.
That was the lecture I had today: A rhetorical précis of an article that summarized a researcher’s findings. I guess the first problem I have is solely with structured concepts like the rhetorical précis (RP). Writing should have structure – but not a predefined one. I think the RP has GREAT value for people who know nothing about summarizing, and it could even be a great reference – but teaching writing through structure is a beginning stage. This is not a beginning English composition course. At one point you have to take the training wheels off and you have to write a summary that fits the situation best. The RP is four sentences long. It’s quite effective if you use it for a short news article, but it gets wordy and the structure is strained when you try to summarize a 12-page editorial and still include everything the RP requires. Brevity is a strength only when it is efficient. I joked in class today that we would keep summarizing the summary à la Inception. Someone else commented that we would end up with a single word: Summary.
The study of rhetoric is important, but the approach is misguided. I guess they are hopeful one day every American will know what a straw man argument is and nothing more. To me writing is one of the few infinite fields. I think the expectations are too small when you simply focus on arguments and rhetoric. Rhetoric-focused English courses also produce situations where handouts are given to students with “good words to use in Situation A or B”. English possibly has more words than any other language. By the way, these lists of words are not vocabulary words that one might overlook or need to learn. They are rhetoric words: The author (states, argues, implies) this. What if I want to say the author impugned the argument of his rival? Nope. I need to stick to a list of words and follow the RP structure. The end result? Something I’m not proud to have written.
Ultimately – the meta-summaries become ridiculous.
Writing without a purpose makes even someone like me not love their work. Not even like it. Actually, I kind of hate it. I’m not producing anything valuable. I’m rehashing summary techniques and treating the written word like legos. The end result isn’t allowed to be a multi-colored palazzo of awesome. It’s a simple square wall with clear defined edges, in a drab slate blue. It’s the same one over and over.
Just for kicks:
In her blog post titled “Are English courses becoming too roundabout?” (2011), Noemi Titarenco argues that her English course is roundabout. She supports her claim by showing the circular logic of summarizing summaries, how her soul dies when she has to summarize summaries, and by summarizing her own blog post to prove a point. Her purpose is to convince readers that free-reign in writing should be an essential part of an advanced English composition course in a playful and sometimes dark-humored way in order to relieve the stress of her daily life and perhaps influence the web in a miniscule way. Her intended audience seems to be people who are trying to avoid work or school by perusing through Facebook or Google Reader.
Coming Soon: StayFocusd Review + and a BETTER app-free way to increase your efficiency.
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