One thing that Firefox can’t do is allow me to access my telehealth therapy appointments. Three different platforms now have rejected my use of Firefox. I use Safari instead bc that’s what works and at least it isn’t chrome, but for folks who rightfully use Firefox, be aware that many, if not all, telehealth platforms will not work on Firefox (something about the encryption/security not being up to their standard, I believe; if there are hacks that Firefox gurus know to bypass this, please share with the class?).
Any reason the developers of those sites give that is not ‘we’re too lazy to check compatibility so we’re blocking Firefox’ is false.
being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager
and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five
someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help
me: my what
What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.
when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.
Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’
1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!
In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose
b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.
g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.
This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.
Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.
so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!
How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense
I have given away so many copies of this book to friends and people doing work for me it is unreal.
It is a comprehensive book of “do this to reduce the chance of pain” and “are you in pain? do this to ease it, then do this to help reduce the chance of pain in the future.”
It is conversational and drawn like a graphic novel and very easy to follow.
I have. Feelings. Whenever I see a drawing program that does not involve some level of labor management.
It (should be) a mission critical duty of every single business to constantly review physical and metal stressors and reduce them as often and as consistently as possible.
I hate to make a post like this again, but my job cut my hours recently and I had a couple bills come out of my account earlier than I had planned, so I’m down to like…10 dollars until payday on Friday, and my wife and I could really use some groceries. If anyone could help out I would greatly appreciate it
CA/VNMO: noisewitch
PP: crornosky@gmail(.)com or just click right here (ignore my deadname)
“… “I’m taking action because I feel desperate,” said U.S. climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who along with several others locked himself to the front door of a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles. A recent report found that the financial giant is the biggest private funder of oil and gas initiatives in the world.
“It’s the 11th hour in terms of Earth breakdown, and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity,” Kalmus continued. “World leaders are still expanding the fossil fuel industry as fast as they can, but this is insane. The science clearly indicates that everything we hold dear is at risk, including even civilization itself and the wonderful, beautiful, cosmically precious life on this planet. I actually don’t get how any scientist who understands this could possibly stay on the sidelines at this point.” …”
Corporate media will not cover the climate crisis.
if your school offers a Queer Theory or LGBT+ History class, take it. find a way to sign up for it, ask a school counselor about it, research it - do whatever you can to take it. with all of these anti-queer bills and legislation coming out, learning our past is extremely important, now more than ever.
the QT class i took was majority oral history from my 70-something badass butch professor. she equipped me with priceless knowledge about all of the people that gave their lives for us to be even in public.
this is a plea to make an effort to preserve our history. no, im simply begging you. don’t let them erase us again.
Also find out if your university library has historical queer materials in their archives and special collections! Even libraries without specific queer history collections will often have smaller ones that have been donated mixed in with local history collections or social welfare and activism ones. It’s very possible your university has old books, zines, newsletters, pinback buttons, t-shirts, pamphlets, and other queer history ephemera stored away in the archives that can be an incredible way to engage with actual primary sources.
Also, a tip from your friendly neighborhood archives assistant: even if you’re not a student, many universities will let independent community members make appointments to see materials in their special collections, which means this is an option for learning about queer history (and getting to look through very neat old materials) that’s actual fairly open and accessible.
Highly, highly recommend searching the collections of nearby universities to find out what research materials are available to you!
this does not necessarily apply to chrome-based browsers but it very well can. ymmv
Click here to get firefox, and once you install it, firefox will ask if you want to import all of your logins, bookmarks and settings from Chrome or whatever else you browsed with.
However, there is also AdNauseam which is built atop uBlock and will silently click on every ad it blocks so you can fuck with advertising companies. Essentially, this poisons whatever information profile they’ve built up on you. AdNauseam was even banned on the Google Web Store in 2017, so you can tell it works and that Google fucking HATES IT.
The real question people need to be asking themselves is: when the exploited workers in the global south revolt and take back the means of production and start growing crops for themselves and stop growing cocoa and bananas and coffee for export, what then? People brought into socialism with the promise that socialism is about “expanded access to goods” will balk the minute they lose access to those goods and will turn to imperialism to get that access back. They are not true allies to the cause as long as “not having cheap bananas” is a dealbreaker to them.
bingo. Socialism without anti-imperialism is a dead end.
Maybe I’m just not as deep (which to be fair isn’t that deep to begin with) into online politics as I thought, but when has socialism ever been about “expanded access it goods” and not control of industries in the hands of the people for the common good?
yeah “expanded access to goods” with no qualifiers on that has never been a central focus of socialism! some people are simply wrong!
in fact, historically, socialist countries have often been subject to economic embargo by capitalist powers, restricting availability of imports.
One example of a socialist country creating a locally produced product to replace one that they were unable to import is the soft drink Cockta. It was invented in Slovenia, then a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the 1950s, when Coca-Cola wasn’t available to import. The main ingredients are various herbs, caramelized sugar, orange, lemon, and rosehip extract. The name is derived from the English word “cocktail.”
Advertisement for Cockta from the 1950s:
Although Yugoslavia is no more and Coca-Cola reigns supreme, Cockta is still a popular beverage in former Yugoslav countries. They still use a recipe very close to the original. You can get Cockta at most grocery and convenience stores, and some cafés and restaurants serve it as well.
I think Cockta is delicious and I actually like it even more than Coca-Cola.
my brother started calling our cat “doobie brother” which he then lengthened to “dubious brother” and has since morphed into “brother dubious” like he’s some sort of fucked up little monk
brother dubious
“My liege, I’m afraid I have reason to believe your concubine plots against you. Worry not, your eminence, you can still trust me, of course…”
(American) Tree Law is very satisfying because the cases often involve someone damaging trees that don’t belong to them, usually for an aesthetic, mercenary, petty, and/or spiteful reason. However, American tree law comes down like a HAMMER on such people, and they will get mighty fines. If the tree dies, in fact, they’ll be on the hook to replace the whole thing, and as it turns out, trees ain’t cheap. As the article above summarizes one incident in Reddit terms:
To rephrase it as an AITA post: am I the asshole if I cut down 32 trees on my neighbor’s property, but instead of just charging me a $32,000 fine, now they’re going to make me build a road and find transplanted, equally mature trees to replant?
Tree Law is perhaps one of the few branches (I didn’t even mean that to be a pun) of American law where self-entitled wrongdoers WILL face consequences. NBC Universal wants to maul a row of city-owned ficus trees to deprive striking workers of shade during a heat wave?Oh boy.
“but if you’re pro-union, why are you anti-cop-union?” because cops are not laborers. what cops do is not labor. they are enforcers of the laws that oppress laborers and exist solely to protect capital. don’t bother me with stupid questions.
They’re not a union, they’re a gang.
Unions support other unions because that’s what solidarity means.
Police “unions” will break up real union activity (e.g. strikes) with rubber bullets and tear gas if that’s what needs to be done to protect someone’s profit margin.
Cops aren’t welcome at Pride for a similar reason. They have their place in civil rights history, and that place has always been protecting the status quo and brutalizing protestors.
In a move that has sparked outcry from archaeologists, historians and locals, the Peruvian government has approved a multi-billion international airport near the famed site of Machu Picchu, Peru’s single most important tourist destination. Bulldozers have begun to clear millions of tons of earth for the project, which will be located in Chinchero, a picturesque Inca town.
Building the airport in this location will destroy an ancient landscape, one shaped by the Incan people with terraces and routes.
Critics also suggest that planes flying low over the nearby village of Ollantaytambo and its archaeological park filled with ruins and a massive Inca fortress with large stone terraces, would cause incalculable damage to fragile Inca ruins there and destroy the peace and beauty of the area.
The new airport will make access to the site much easier, and thus encourage greater numbers than ever before to visit.
But Machu Picchu is already overwhelmed by almost double the limit of tourists as recommended by UNESCO. [see also India’s Taj Mahal - an incredible site simply reeling under a relentless, ineffectively managed tourist, both domestic and international, onslaught]
It’s the constant battle between protecting the past and profiteering from it.
to be completely honest, there is probably nothing anyone can do about this at this point because it has been in the works since the 90’s. as you can most likely tell, our government is a fucking joke. still, this needs international attention. a lot of it. this is my country’s history, culture and one of the most beautiful things we have to offer at risk.
our best bet is at the very least causing somewhat global outrage to spread awareness and perhaps make this into something bigger amongst the middle and upper class people in the central cities as sadly the lower class and indigenous citizens (the majority of the country’s population) go widely ignored by the government and the former (middle and upper class) tend to also ignore shit unless they perceive it as affecting them directly
HAH! When I was working on character/prop design on Arthur, the script just said that Buster showed up in his pajamas. But since it struck me that Arthur’s pajama design included bunny slippers… and his best friend was a bunny, it seemed fitting to include Aardvark slippers on Buster’s pajama design.
Apparently the storyboard artist was amused and he featured the slippers in a closeup! I was so proud!
