On the whole, 2008 has been a pretty good year for me. I enrolled in a post-graduate course at Melbourne Uni - if I keep it up I'll be a licensed Master of Publishing and Communications. Hell, I might even go do the mortarboard and gown thing for the first time when I finish this one. By dint of not so persistent practice and application my drawing steadily improved to the point where I felt up to hanging a few of the better ones on the study wall. Things were looking good, as long as I ignored the 'housing affordability crisis' - in plain English, Australia's chronic housing shortage.
Then in late October, when I was out in the outer leafies, dog-sitting again, the usual happened: that cantankerous old bastard in the sky, the one in whom I refuse to believe, dropped a big, fat jobbie into my life. I came home for an overnight stay, after a class, and Zeppo Bakunin showed me the notice to quit that we'd received from the agents. Our landlord and landlady were splitting up and the landlord and his daughter needed a place to live. Moving us out, so that they could move in, was cheaper than moving into a rented house, in a tight rental market, and keeping up the mortgage payments on this place, regardless of the rental income and negative gearing. I used to like our landlords but, sooner or later, this country's housing market forces everyone involved in it to act like a bastard.
So now Zeppo Bakunin and I are looking for the opportunity to perform our own little act of bastardry - we're looking for a house we can move to. Whatever we look at, there's bound to be at least one young family looking at the same place. People who'll use the extra bedrooms for sleeping in, rather than accomodating desks, computers, books and assorted stuff.
Since the market is very tight at the moment, it's wise to have back-up plans. My plan B is to get really active on internet dating sites, and try to find someone with really low expectations with a bungalow in the backyard. Plan C is to pack up all or most of the stuff, put it into self-storage and use my pensioner Christmas bonus to do a bit of travelling: the way the economy is heading, I reckon the first edition of The Rough Sleeper's Guide to Australia will find a ready market.
At times like these, I envy the Swedes. Back in 2002, I read a World Bank report which gave the Swedish government a slap on the wrist for allowing a surplus of public housing to develop. This was, of course, a waste of economic resources and therefore economically irrational, if not irresponsible. Given the choice between economically responsible government and a roof over my head, I know which one I'd take right now.
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Enter at Your Own Risk
A couple of my real-life friends decided to go ex-pat last year; they're now in London, doing what ex-pats do. In this case, getting sucked into a Movieum of London short film contest, where entrants had 48 hours to produce a slasher horror film for screening on Halloween. You can read a bit about the making of here, or you can just take a look at the finished entry. An extended version with more slashing is in the works.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
But Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man?
A FORMER male model who ran an illegal steroid and human growth hormone business now realised he could make more money as a legitimate Gold Coast real estate agent, a court was told yesterday.
Brendan James Brophy, 28, pleaded guilty to 13 offences including importing and trafficking a variety of banned substances from his Ashmore home base from July, 2006, to March, 2007. He was sentenced to two years and six months' jail...
His defence lawyers tendered documents showing Brophy, a high achiever at school, was a promising model and keen gym goer before his arrest.
The court was told that after being caught Brophy became a successful real estate agent at Broadbeach.
Justice John Byrne ordered Brophy to serve six months of the sentence before being released.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Hand Models Wanted
While I was strolling down the street on my way to Uni last week, I noticed a couple of very attractive pieces of hard-rubbish lying on the nature strip - two 51cm x 60cm MDF offcuts. If I clean them up and put a couple of coats of that gesso stuff on them, they'll provide very suitable surfaces for painting on.
I already have one drawing that I want to paint up, but as I was thinking about it, I inevitably came up with the idea of elaborating it (bloody subconscious) so now I'm stuck with finding eight volunteers - four male, four female - who're prepared to sit around for an hour or two while I draw various sketches of their hands.
Some token remuneration, in the form of tea (or coffee) and Tim Tams, might be offered. It will give your right hand something to do while I draw the left, and vice versa.
Why not just use my own hands, you ask? Well, the only one of those I can draw with any facility is the right one, since I'm left handed. I think that a painting of a lot of allegedly different pairs of hands which are all, in fact, the one hand variously misrepresented would lack a bit of verisimilitude.
I already have one drawing that I want to paint up, but as I was thinking about it, I inevitably came up with the idea of elaborating it (bloody subconscious) so now I'm stuck with finding eight volunteers - four male, four female - who're prepared to sit around for an hour or two while I draw various sketches of their hands.
Some token remuneration, in the form of tea (or coffee) and Tim Tams, might be offered. It will give your right hand something to do while I draw the left, and vice versa.
Why not just use my own hands, you ask? Well, the only one of those I can draw with any facility is the right one, since I'm left handed. I think that a painting of a lot of allegedly different pairs of hands which are all, in fact, the one hand variously misrepresented would lack a bit of verisimilitude.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Freedom of Association
I can't remember when this happened - some time way back before I got married, obviously. When I'd finished Uni, had a job and enough income to afford a flat of my own.
It was a Friday night - I was in my poky little kitchen, turning a chook over in the black cast iron roasting dish, when I heard a knock on the door. "Bugger, she's early!" I thought. The chook still had a good half hour to go and so did the spuds. I hadn't got round to blanching the haricots vert yet, nor had I set the table or crammed the candles into the necks of the Mateus bottles.
But it wasn't her at the door - it was some bloke I hadn't ever seen before, and behind him a few people who all had one thing in common - they were complete strangers to me.
"G'day, I'm Eric," he said, "Tom said you might be able to help us out."
"Uh, I'm a bit busy right now - I've got a friend coming over for dinner at eight."
Tom I knew only vaguely - he was the weird downstairs neighbour with the Che Guevara poster glued to the outside of his front door who'd buttonhole you on the staircase to ask you if you were interested in going along to a forum on the socialist approach to stopping the international arms trade and other such exciting events.
"Yeah, well the thing is, we need somewhere to hold our meeting tonight."
"And?"
"Well Tom told us your thinking was fairly sound - for a bourgeois - so maybe we could use your place."
"I've got a friend coming over for dinner at eight."
So then this bloke, who still hadn't introduced himself to me gives me a pointed stare and said:
"You've heard of freedom of association, haven't you? It's a basic human right."
I gave him one of those blank looks you give someone who's just said, or done something totally astonishing, then patiently repeated:
"I've got a friend coming over for dinner at eight." Since that clearly wasn't going to be enough to get the message across I spelt out the consequences "You'll have to find somewhere else to hold your meeting."
"Typical f'k'n bourgeois pseudo-leftist..." he grumbled, "Care more about your own bloody sex-life than basic human freedoms!" His firends all gave me disapproving glares and disappeared into the night.
A few days later the managing agents for the flats came round to inspect Tom's place and he received an eviction notice. Apparently there'd been a few complaints from one or two of the other tenants about loud music in the wee small hours and other strange goings on. I didn't learn about it until I bumped into him as he was moving his stuff out to his new place.
"What sort of person would do something like that?" he asked, after recounting the events just described, "Where's the class-consciousness?"
"No idea." I said and went upstairs to sit down and listen to Bach's Mass in B Minor, on vinyl, confident that this time the et resurrexit wouldn't be interrupted by The Ballad of Joe Hill coming up through the floor.
It was a Friday night - I was in my poky little kitchen, turning a chook over in the black cast iron roasting dish, when I heard a knock on the door. "Bugger, she's early!" I thought. The chook still had a good half hour to go and so did the spuds. I hadn't got round to blanching the haricots vert yet, nor had I set the table or crammed the candles into the necks of the Mateus bottles.
But it wasn't her at the door - it was some bloke I hadn't ever seen before, and behind him a few people who all had one thing in common - they were complete strangers to me.
"G'day, I'm Eric," he said, "Tom said you might be able to help us out."
"Uh, I'm a bit busy right now - I've got a friend coming over for dinner at eight."
Tom I knew only vaguely - he was the weird downstairs neighbour with the Che Guevara poster glued to the outside of his front door who'd buttonhole you on the staircase to ask you if you were interested in going along to a forum on the socialist approach to stopping the international arms trade and other such exciting events.
"Yeah, well the thing is, we need somewhere to hold our meeting tonight."
"And?"
"Well Tom told us your thinking was fairly sound - for a bourgeois - so maybe we could use your place."
"I've got a friend coming over for dinner at eight."
So then this bloke, who still hadn't introduced himself to me gives me a pointed stare and said:
"You've heard of freedom of association, haven't you? It's a basic human right."
I gave him one of those blank looks you give someone who's just said, or done something totally astonishing, then patiently repeated:
"I've got a friend coming over for dinner at eight." Since that clearly wasn't going to be enough to get the message across I spelt out the consequences "You'll have to find somewhere else to hold your meeting."
"Typical f'k'n bourgeois pseudo-leftist..." he grumbled, "Care more about your own bloody sex-life than basic human freedoms!" His firends all gave me disapproving glares and disappeared into the night.
A few days later the managing agents for the flats came round to inspect Tom's place and he received an eviction notice. Apparently there'd been a few complaints from one or two of the other tenants about loud music in the wee small hours and other strange goings on. I didn't learn about it until I bumped into him as he was moving his stuff out to his new place.
"What sort of person would do something like that?" he asked, after recounting the events just described, "Where's the class-consciousness?"
"No idea." I said and went upstairs to sit down and listen to Bach's Mass in B Minor, on vinyl, confident that this time the et resurrexit wouldn't be interrupted by The Ballad of Joe Hill coming up through the floor.
Secret Nice Guy™ Business
Nicky'n'Alex were two people I used to know way back when - in the early eighties, when I'd just finished my completely worthless first degree (it took me six years, with leaves of absence and repeated years, but I finally got there). They had been a Nitem for quite a while and it was generally assumed that they were going to stay a Nitem for life. Of the two I was closer to Alex than to Nicky.
Alex was a third generation Irish Aussie, Nicky a second generation Greek Aussie. They went well together, were very obviously in lerv, and though I'd once had designs on Alex myself I was more or less resigned to being her Nice Guy™ friend who didn't quite get what Nicky had that I didn't have but sort of hung around, willing to be a repository of confidences, in the vague hope that they'd stop being a Nitem. Then, after a suitably decent interval, I'd get to invite her out and try my chances myself. Bacause, in my Nice Guy™ way, I respected her personal autonomy too much to try to score at a time when she was feeling hurt and vulnerable. Nice Guys™ don't exploit their friends like that.
Nicky'n'Alex stopped being a Nitem in 1982. While on vacation from uni, Nicky took a three-month overseas trip - to Europe of course. When the two of them parted at the airport there was much sadness. Nicky told Alex how much he was going to miss her, she told him that she would miss him too, they hugged, promised to write each other regularly - a promise Nicky was to keep scrupulously - and finally we managed to force a crow bar between them and prised them apart so that Nicky could actually get away to catch his flight. He winged away, those of us who'd come to the airport hung around looking sheepish because we didn't quite know what how to prop up Alex's mood - nor indeed how much propping up was required.
Over the next two months, Nicky wrote regularly to Alex, as promised, with news of the sights he'd seen,the adventures he'd had, and wishing very much that Alex could be there to share it with him but of course one day, they would have the chance to go to Europe together and he would show her such fabulous things. Then he went to Athens, for the last part of his trip, an extended visit with his extended family in Greece - and his brains went South into his underpants. I got a call from Alex asking me if I could go over for a visit because she'd just had an upseeting letter from Nicky. She sounded like she had been crying. My Nice Guy™ moment had finally arrived.
The full story, though it was drawn out in the telling, was a short one - Nicky's letter had told her that he had met someone else and, much as he had struggled with his feelings, he couldn't help himself - the new woman he had met in Athens, Eleni, was the woman for him. From what Alex told me of the letter, it revealed a sentimental "romantic" side to Nicky that I'd never suspected before. We had coffee together, we went for a walk in the local park, keeping away from the lighted paths and staying in the shadows under the trees to avoid any chance that a passing stranger might gawk at her tears and I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets, walking close but not too close beside her, as a proper Nice Guy™ should. Then I accompanied her home, we had another coffee and she said "Gummo, I'm glad that at least you're not the kind of bastard Nicky turned out to be." and that was that - all my Nice Guy™ dreams scuttled in a single sentence.
As I said at the outset, the story's been fictionalised - name changes to protect the privacy of old friends with whom I've lost contact, and such. I also swapped the gender of my two main protagonists - Alex was actually a man, Nicky a woman.
Alex and I did take that walk in the park, and while we did, we talked about how he was going to deal with the news and Nicky's inevitable wish, in the letter that she had written that they could somehow find a way to remain friends. Once we'd sorted that one out - I can't remember the details of how - we had a bit of fun inventing imaginary misfortunes that would fall on Nicky from a great height if there was any such thing as poetic justice. In the secret darkness under the trees in the park, we indulged the misogynist that lurks at the heart of every Nice Guy™ with fantasies of Nicky married, up the duff, and abandoned, because the man of her dreams was only after permanent residency. But of course as we were both Nice Guys™, we couldn't really wish that on her, pleasing as the imagining was.
What happened between them next was inevitable - Alex became Nicky's Nice Guy™ and her source of consolation and advice when she had troubles with her Greek boyfriend. He was the one who got her through the lonely months of waiting for him to come to Australia. In a purely platonic, Nice Guy™ way, of course. She had hide enough to ask that, and he was mug enough to give it.
If you find that last sentence a touch misogynistic, I suggest you just swap the genders back to where they were at the beginning of the story and see if you like that any better.
Alex was a third generation Irish Aussie, Nicky a second generation Greek Aussie. They went well together, were very obviously in lerv, and though I'd once had designs on Alex myself I was more or less resigned to being her Nice Guy™ friend who didn't quite get what Nicky had that I didn't have but sort of hung around, willing to be a repository of confidences, in the vague hope that they'd stop being a Nitem. Then, after a suitably decent interval, I'd get to invite her out and try my chances myself. Bacause, in my Nice Guy™ way, I respected her personal autonomy too much to try to score at a time when she was feeling hurt and vulnerable. Nice Guys™ don't exploit their friends like that.
Nicky'n'Alex stopped being a Nitem in 1982. While on vacation from uni, Nicky took a three-month overseas trip - to Europe of course. When the two of them parted at the airport there was much sadness. Nicky told Alex how much he was going to miss her, she told him that she would miss him too, they hugged, promised to write each other regularly - a promise Nicky was to keep scrupulously - and finally we managed to force a crow bar between them and prised them apart so that Nicky could actually get away to catch his flight. He winged away, those of us who'd come to the airport hung around looking sheepish because we didn't quite know what how to prop up Alex's mood - nor indeed how much propping up was required.
Over the next two months, Nicky wrote regularly to Alex, as promised, with news of the sights he'd seen,the adventures he'd had, and wishing very much that Alex could be there to share it with him but of course one day, they would have the chance to go to Europe together and he would show her such fabulous things. Then he went to Athens, for the last part of his trip, an extended visit with his extended family in Greece - and his brains went South into his underpants. I got a call from Alex asking me if I could go over for a visit because she'd just had an upseeting letter from Nicky. She sounded like she had been crying. My Nice Guy™ moment had finally arrived.
The full story, though it was drawn out in the telling, was a short one - Nicky's letter had told her that he had met someone else and, much as he had struggled with his feelings, he couldn't help himself - the new woman he had met in Athens, Eleni, was the woman for him. From what Alex told me of the letter, it revealed a sentimental "romantic" side to Nicky that I'd never suspected before. We had coffee together, we went for a walk in the local park, keeping away from the lighted paths and staying in the shadows under the trees to avoid any chance that a passing stranger might gawk at her tears and I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets, walking close but not too close beside her, as a proper Nice Guy™ should. Then I accompanied her home, we had another coffee and she said "Gummo, I'm glad that at least you're not the kind of bastard Nicky turned out to be." and that was that - all my Nice Guy™ dreams scuttled in a single sentence.
As I said at the outset, the story's been fictionalised - name changes to protect the privacy of old friends with whom I've lost contact, and such. I also swapped the gender of my two main protagonists - Alex was actually a man, Nicky a woman.
Alex and I did take that walk in the park, and while we did, we talked about how he was going to deal with the news and Nicky's inevitable wish, in the letter that she had written that they could somehow find a way to remain friends. Once we'd sorted that one out - I can't remember the details of how - we had a bit of fun inventing imaginary misfortunes that would fall on Nicky from a great height if there was any such thing as poetic justice. In the secret darkness under the trees in the park, we indulged the misogynist that lurks at the heart of every Nice Guy™ with fantasies of Nicky married, up the duff, and abandoned, because the man of her dreams was only after permanent residency. But of course as we were both Nice Guys™, we couldn't really wish that on her, pleasing as the imagining was.
What happened between them next was inevitable - Alex became Nicky's Nice Guy™ and her source of consolation and advice when she had troubles with her Greek boyfriend. He was the one who got her through the lonely months of waiting for him to come to Australia. In a purely platonic, Nice Guy™ way, of course. She had hide enough to ask that, and he was mug enough to give it.
If you find that last sentence a touch misogynistic, I suggest you just swap the genders back to where they were at the beginning of the story and see if you like that any better.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Counting Flowers On the Wall, and Other Amusements
It's cost me $36.00 - for which I got two derisive E-mails, several E-mails that were not at all derisive, one Yahoo mail address, one telephone number and one and half hours of conversation over cups of flat white coffee - but I've finally confirmed something I've long suspected. There's no point wasting any of my time or money on on-line dating services.
The title of this piece doesn't adequately convey my opinions or feelings about the on-line dating service I used, but I'd probably get into trouble over trademark infringement if I'd published the original title - the four-letter acronym of the service with an "ox" on the end. Those of my friends who've also resorted to on-line dating consider it the best of the commercial sites they have tried, so it might also be a little unfair.
It's obvious from the special offers I get from the service via e-mail that they have a bit of a problem attracting men to use the service. I'm not surprised by that. From this bloke's point of view the service is woeful.
What I got for my 36 bucks was three "stamps" (yes I'm talking about RSVP for anyone who hasn't guessed already) each of which entitled me to unlimited e-mail contact for one month, with one other RSVP user. Unused stamps expire if they're not used within a month. For more money than I could afford at the time I could have bought more stamps with longer life expectancies.
In contrast, I can go to any Australia Post outlet at any time and buy a book of standard paper stamps that I can stick on an envelope, also at any time, and shove in the mailbox when I get around to it. The stamps don't expire - if standard postage rates go up I can buy additional stamps, of smaller value, to top up the value of the out of date stamps I already own. Within the limits of standard envelope sizes I can put whatever I like in an envelope, address it, shove it in a post box and Australia Post will deliver it. It won't come back with a purple ink hand stamped on the front, pointing to the stamp I bought back when, with the message "This series no longer recognised".
Yes, I'm comparing snail mail with e-mail, which looks like comparing apples with oranges and if you think that, you've missed the same central point that RSVP has missed - if I prepay for a service which allows me to contact other people at my own discretion - which is where Aussie Post and RSVP are no different - I expect, quite reasonably I think, that "at my own discretion" will mean just that - not within an arbitrary time which has very obviously been designed to push me into spending more to increase both the number of people I might contact and the period over which I can do so.
I've used two of those stamps - the first in response to someone who actually initiated contact with me through an RSVP "kiss". That got me the two derisive E-Mails. The second got me the good things - the e-mails that weren't derisive and so on to the hour and half of conversation over coffee, an undertaking to get in touch again in the New Year but not the free steak knives.
And the third I simply can't be bothered using, at least not this year. I've got until the middle of January so the prospect of blowing it early in 2008 can't be ruled out. Whatever occurs, that will be me done with on-line dating.
Leaving the next appalling contrived option to sonsider - joining a book group. Not yet though. For now I think it's time to find a pack of 51 playing cards to while away the time as I wait for the skies to open and Ms Adequate to fall into my lap. It's happened once or twice before so the possibility can't be ruled out completely.
The title of this piece doesn't adequately convey my opinions or feelings about the on-line dating service I used, but I'd probably get into trouble over trademark infringement if I'd published the original title - the four-letter acronym of the service with an "ox" on the end. Those of my friends who've also resorted to on-line dating consider it the best of the commercial sites they have tried, so it might also be a little unfair.
It's obvious from the special offers I get from the service via e-mail that they have a bit of a problem attracting men to use the service. I'm not surprised by that. From this bloke's point of view the service is woeful.
What I got for my 36 bucks was three "stamps" (yes I'm talking about RSVP for anyone who hasn't guessed already) each of which entitled me to unlimited e-mail contact for one month, with one other RSVP user. Unused stamps expire if they're not used within a month. For more money than I could afford at the time I could have bought more stamps with longer life expectancies.
In contrast, I can go to any Australia Post outlet at any time and buy a book of standard paper stamps that I can stick on an envelope, also at any time, and shove in the mailbox when I get around to it. The stamps don't expire - if standard postage rates go up I can buy additional stamps, of smaller value, to top up the value of the out of date stamps I already own. Within the limits of standard envelope sizes I can put whatever I like in an envelope, address it, shove it in a post box and Australia Post will deliver it. It won't come back with a purple ink hand stamped on the front, pointing to the stamp I bought back when, with the message "This series no longer recognised".
Yes, I'm comparing snail mail with e-mail, which looks like comparing apples with oranges and if you think that, you've missed the same central point that RSVP has missed - if I prepay for a service which allows me to contact other people at my own discretion - which is where Aussie Post and RSVP are no different - I expect, quite reasonably I think, that "at my own discretion" will mean just that - not within an arbitrary time which has very obviously been designed to push me into spending more to increase both the number of people I might contact and the period over which I can do so.
I've used two of those stamps - the first in response to someone who actually initiated contact with me through an RSVP "kiss". That got me the two derisive E-Mails. The second got me the good things - the e-mails that weren't derisive and so on to the hour and half of conversation over coffee, an undertaking to get in touch again in the New Year but not the free steak knives.
And the third I simply can't be bothered using, at least not this year. I've got until the middle of January so the prospect of blowing it early in 2008 can't be ruled out. Whatever occurs, that will be me done with on-line dating.
Leaving the next appalling contrived option to sonsider - joining a book group. Not yet though. For now I think it's time to find a pack of 51 playing cards to while away the time as I wait for the skies to open and Ms Adequate to fall into my lap. It's happened once or twice before so the possibility can't be ruled out completely.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Pre-Christmas Vinyl Chuck-Out
I've just finished sorting my collection of old vinyl recordings into two classes - those I definitely want to keep, and those I can live without.
If there are any Melbourne readers out there who might be interested in acquiring some old 70s and 80s pop, one hit wonders and other stuff I've come to regard as so much musical dross, just drop me a line (gummo dot trotsky at gmail full-stop com).
If there are any Melbourne readers out there who might be interested in acquiring some old 70s and 80s pop, one hit wonders and other stuff I've come to regard as so much musical dross, just drop me a line (gummo dot trotsky at gmail full-stop com).
You Know You're Too PC Dependent When ...
... you take a break from working on a complex tonal drawing and your first thought is that it's time to hit "File → Save".
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Bare Bones
I botched this one. I drew it after leafing through one of those "anatomy for artists" books. It was drawn from touch as much as it was from sight, poking fingers into various parts of my face to find the bony structures holding up the muscle, fat, skin and hair. With those details picked out with faint lines (4H pencil), I figured I could build up a more accurately proportioned and shaded face.It didn't work out that way, for reasons I won't go into, so it's time for a break from the drawing for a day or two. Then I might try it again.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Looking Better
Almost human in fact - give or take a little bit of leftie bias - for some reason the right side never comes out as good looking as the left side.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Magpie Feather
Doing some things - like drawing this feather - just takes as long as it takes. Afterwards, you look at the clock at the bottom right of your computer monitor to check the time and realise that it's pointless because you have no idea when you started. This is not a bad thing.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Self Portrait With Receding Hairline
Postscript (14 November): now that you think you know what I look like, maybe you should go back to Missing Link and check out the stuff that's actually worth reading!
Monday, October 22, 2007
A Dried Out Leaf (V)
Seam Carving
This morning's drawing exercise was another one of those "expand your comfort zone" exercises. The result was a drawing of yet another leaf (a different one this time - I'm considering the possibility of embedding the last leaf in epoxy resin, to make a cute little paperweight for sale with the ink drawing of it that's already on offer. If only I had the skills, and the time, to craft a matching set of steak knives). This morning's drawing is on Conte crayon on cartridge paper, initialled and dated by yours truly and definitely not for sale. It has a crap half and a not so crap half.
So let's file that one away in the manila folder of "Drawings - Exercise" for now and take a look at that noxious little genie I mentioned in the first post in this series - his name is "seam carving". You can check him out in this YouTube clip. What seam-carving promises is "content-aware image resizing". I find the results a bit of an eyesore.
(Note: although the link points to a video plugging commercial software for seam-carving, there are open-source packages out there as well).
Seam-carving is a way of taking "unimportant" detail - typically background detail - out of an image as it is resized, without altering the "content". That is whatever a web-page designer decided is important in the picture. It's a "solution" to the "problem" that arises when a computer user resizes a browser window and the the text adjusts to the new window dimensions, but the images just sit there, obstinately refusing to shift from their current 500x375 pixel resolution.
Here's that leaf again (the hilariously over-priced one), in a new visual context that I'll be using to illustrate what happens to an image when it's seam-carved for resizing. In this image the leaf is placed at the centre, on what appears (thanks to the perspective of the chequerboard) to be a flat, horizontal surface. Behind it, I've implied a vertical surface, or just open space.
Let's set some conditions for how the image is to be resized, if it is stretched in any direction - horizontally, vertically or a combination of both. They are:
The leaf is to remain at the visual centre of the image;
It is to stay the same size throughout the transformation.
Now let's look at what happens, under those conditions, when we reduce first the height of the image, then its width, then reduce both to smallest size we are prepared to accept.
Minimum Image Height
Minimum Image Width
Minimimum Image Area
I hope it's obvious from examining and comparing these three images that the alterations to the background we've made to keep the leaf centred at the same size have altered our perception of the leaf - particularly in the last image, where the leaf appears to have grown a lot larger. To watch the process happening dynamically (in the YouTube video) is, for me, quite unsettling and a little fatiguing.
I'll leave this topic here for now and come back to it either in a new post or an update. Now that I've hit the topic of "seam-carving" we're starting to get to the meat of this series.
This morning's drawing exercise was another one of those "expand your comfort zone" exercises. The result was a drawing of yet another leaf (a different one this time - I'm considering the possibility of embedding the last leaf in epoxy resin, to make a cute little paperweight for sale with the ink drawing of it that's already on offer. If only I had the skills, and the time, to craft a matching set of steak knives). This morning's drawing is on Conte crayon on cartridge paper, initialled and dated by yours truly and definitely not for sale. It has a crap half and a not so crap half.
So let's file that one away in the manila folder of "Drawings - Exercise" for now and take a look at that noxious little genie I mentioned in the first post in this series - his name is "seam carving". You can check him out in this YouTube clip. What seam-carving promises is "content-aware image resizing". I find the results a bit of an eyesore.
(Note: although the link points to a video plugging commercial software for seam-carving, there are open-source packages out there as well).
Seam-carving is a way of taking "unimportant" detail - typically background detail - out of an image as it is resized, without altering the "content". That is whatever a web-page designer decided is important in the picture. It's a "solution" to the "problem" that arises when a computer user resizes a browser window and the the text adjusts to the new window dimensions, but the images just sit there, obstinately refusing to shift from their current 500x375 pixel resolution.
Here's that leaf again (the hilariously over-priced one), in a new visual context that I'll be using to illustrate what happens to an image when it's seam-carved for resizing. In this image the leaf is placed at the centre, on what appears (thanks to the perspective of the chequerboard) to be a flat, horizontal surface. Behind it, I've implied a vertical surface, or just open space.
Let's set some conditions for how the image is to be resized, if it is stretched in any direction - horizontally, vertically or a combination of both. They are:
The leaf is to remain at the visual centre of the image;
It is to stay the same size throughout the transformation.
Now let's look at what happens, under those conditions, when we reduce first the height of the image, then its width, then reduce both to smallest size we are prepared to accept.
Minimum Image Height
Minimum Image Width
Minimimum Image AreaI hope it's obvious from examining and comparing these three images that the alterations to the background we've made to keep the leaf centred at the same size have altered our perception of the leaf - particularly in the last image, where the leaf appears to have grown a lot larger. To watch the process happening dynamically (in the YouTube video) is, for me, quite unsettling and a little fatiguing.
I'll leave this topic here for now and come back to it either in a new post or an update. Now that I've hit the topic of "seam-carving" we're starting to get to the meat of this series.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
A Dried Out Leaf (IV)
(With Defi)
First up, here's a little affront to your visual perception:
There's not much to say about the production of that one - I GIMPed it out quickly this morning, as a sop to the left side of my brain - the half that went into a screaming hissy-fit yesterday morning because "I can't do that stuff and it's not fair - you're giving all your time to right half ..." etc, etc, etc. That moment was a long time coming but it was inevitable - I shouldn't have been so dismissive of the frequent remarks in the teach yourself drawing book that sometimes the process would be emotionally disturbing. One thing I'm sure of, after yesterday's experience - at $100 (or 100 francs) a two minute drawing by Picasso was dirt cheap.
There is quite a bit to say about what the image does to your visual perceptions - and how that's achieved - but I'm setting that aside for later. There's at least one more illustration to produce first. For now I'll content myself with stating, quite emphatically, that the one thing the image is not is an optical illusion. Quite the reverse - it combines three standard techniques for producing the impression of depth in a two dimensional image to produce a result that is quite simply, irreconcilable as a whole image. You'll see what I mean if you sit and look at it and let it jangle your brain for a bit. Don't spent too long - it's very discordant and might upset you. Seriously. It's complete visual nonsense, so there's no point working yourself into a tizzy trying to make sense of it.
Today's teach yourself drawing exercise is to flog off the original drawing for the princely sum of $200 (AU). I have several good reasons for doing this. At the more respectable end of the list - the justification and rationalisation end - getting rid of the original is a good way to detach from it (it's only a piece of paper with ink and pencil markings on it), so I can concentrate on its uses - partly play, and partly to illustrate and drive home the occasional point about visual perception and the veracity, authority or integrity of images. Not as a souvenir of a fraught day where I got far too upset over the fact that I'd just botched a drawing of a leaf, then came home after a visit to my one and only friendly ex-wife (as in, I only have one ex-wife, we're still friendly, and she's a very unique individual) to knock off the drawing in a few minutes.
Why $200? Well, it's a nice round figure but it comprises 3 components - eight hours work at or around the minimum wage ($132.00), Workcover compensation for the self-inflicted emotional trauma and, finally, postage and handling (all up, the other $70). What you get - in the unlikely event that you take up the offer, is an A4 sheet of graphic artist's tracing paper, with the drawing rendered in ink and pencil. And that's it, so we'll move on to the less respectable end of my list of reasons - sheer emotional and financial desparation, of which I've had a gutful.
I'm quite sure at this stage, that I've delivered a second affront to a few readers - those of you who're scrolling down the post to hit the comments link so that you can denounce this as nothing more than on-line begging - a blatant bleg. Don't waste your time - comments is gone. You might, however, be interested in the alternative, which I'll describe later.
Defi
Begging my arse. It's an open, and honest free market transaction. The merchandise, as described, exists. It will be despatched to the first purchaser to stump up the $200 through that PayPal button that's been sitting idle over on the left-hand side of the page. If anybody does buy the drawing, I'm not interested in their motivations for doing so. I don't expect them to be to interested, respectful, or sympathetic to my motivations for selling. You want the drawing - it's yours, for $200, take it or leave it. You'll get more for your money than Helga got for the $4000 she spent ordering a Hewlett-Packard computer, from a "reputable" major retailer (the story's probably hit the business news by now, but I haven't been tracking it). The day after she ordered the computer, the company went into receivership. As an unsecured creditor, the most she can realistically expect out of the transaction is a dividend of 10 cents in the dollar - $3600 down the tubes in 24 hours. That's reputable Australian business practice.
Still got some abuse to vent? Well, here's the deal - the replacement for the comments facility I mentioned earlier. Use the "Flame Gummo" button - for a mere $5.00 donation via PayPal, you can vent your spleen, your gall bladder and your flatus-bloated bowels in an e-mail to me. I'm not kidding.
Now that's really affronted you, hasn't it? I can hear the huffing and puffing already - what have we come to, when someone is prepared to cop online abuse for $5.00 a throw. What sort of debased individual would demean himself that way?
Still not prepared to part with your money? Well, that leaves two last options.
If you're really so sickened by this post as you profess, put your vote where your mouth is. It won't cost you a cent. In the coming election, cast your vote so that it ends up - via whatever circuitous perambulation through our system of preference allocation suits you - so that it ends up with the ALP.
I'm not entirely rapt with Kevin Rudd either, but I'll still be casting my vote for the ALP. Because I want to live in a civil society again - I'm bloody desperate to live in a civil society again. Because I'm sick of the Liberal Party's Theatre of Cruelty - the ongoing soap opera of Work for the Dole (with the new spin off show, Welfare to Work) the big spectacles like Tampa and the Northern Territory intervention, the little kitchen-sink dramas like Federal Police raids on the homes of Australian Muslims that turn up nothing, the trashing of Mamdouh Habib's reputation, the Haneef Affair. This is a government that has repeatedly, and routinely, victimised private citizens for no better purpose than to give all you nice people out there someone you can despise.
As Ziggy Stellenstaub, my head-care specialist, said at our last get-together, if the Liberal Party win this one, they'll believe they can get away with anything. As someone who can confidently expect to be on the debasing and demeaning end of whatever "anything" succeeds Welfare to Work, whose next change of residence if something isn't done about providing affordable rental accomodation is going to be from an almost, but not quite affordable suburban house to the street, with all the asset losses that entails, I've got a very strong vested interest in seeing that "anything" forestalled.
Don't think much of that option either? Well, you can always don the mantle of sanctimonious hypocrite and denounce me in whatever public forum - be it a blog or a newspaper column - you can use. Just don't come around here expecting to kick Trotsky unless you're prepared to pay for the privilege. Your bigotted, "one-dream-fits-all and if it doesn't we'll bloody well make you fit it", idea of what this country should be doesn't interest me. It never really did.
First up, here's a little affront to your visual perception:
There's not much to say about the production of that one - I GIMPed it out quickly this morning, as a sop to the left side of my brain - the half that went into a screaming hissy-fit yesterday morning because "I can't do that stuff and it's not fair - you're giving all your time to right half ..." etc, etc, etc. That moment was a long time coming but it was inevitable - I shouldn't have been so dismissive of the frequent remarks in the teach yourself drawing book that sometimes the process would be emotionally disturbing. One thing I'm sure of, after yesterday's experience - at $100 (or 100 francs) a two minute drawing by Picasso was dirt cheap.
There is quite a bit to say about what the image does to your visual perceptions - and how that's achieved - but I'm setting that aside for later. There's at least one more illustration to produce first. For now I'll content myself with stating, quite emphatically, that the one thing the image is not is an optical illusion. Quite the reverse - it combines three standard techniques for producing the impression of depth in a two dimensional image to produce a result that is quite simply, irreconcilable as a whole image. You'll see what I mean if you sit and look at it and let it jangle your brain for a bit. Don't spent too long - it's very discordant and might upset you. Seriously. It's complete visual nonsense, so there's no point working yourself into a tizzy trying to make sense of it.
Today's teach yourself drawing exercise is to flog off the original drawing for the princely sum of $200 (AU). I have several good reasons for doing this. At the more respectable end of the list - the justification and rationalisation end - getting rid of the original is a good way to detach from it (it's only a piece of paper with ink and pencil markings on it), so I can concentrate on its uses - partly play, and partly to illustrate and drive home the occasional point about visual perception and the veracity, authority or integrity of images. Not as a souvenir of a fraught day where I got far too upset over the fact that I'd just botched a drawing of a leaf, then came home after a visit to my one and only friendly ex-wife (as in, I only have one ex-wife, we're still friendly, and she's a very unique individual) to knock off the drawing in a few minutes.
Why $200? Well, it's a nice round figure but it comprises 3 components - eight hours work at or around the minimum wage ($132.00), Workcover compensation for the self-inflicted emotional trauma and, finally, postage and handling (all up, the other $70). What you get - in the unlikely event that you take up the offer, is an A4 sheet of graphic artist's tracing paper, with the drawing rendered in ink and pencil. And that's it, so we'll move on to the less respectable end of my list of reasons - sheer emotional and financial desparation, of which I've had a gutful.
I'm quite sure at this stage, that I've delivered a second affront to a few readers - those of you who're scrolling down the post to hit the comments link so that you can denounce this as nothing more than on-line begging - a blatant bleg. Don't waste your time - comments is gone. You might, however, be interested in the alternative, which I'll describe later.
Defi
Begging my arse. It's an open, and honest free market transaction. The merchandise, as described, exists. It will be despatched to the first purchaser to stump up the $200 through that PayPal button that's been sitting idle over on the left-hand side of the page. If anybody does buy the drawing, I'm not interested in their motivations for doing so. I don't expect them to be to interested, respectful, or sympathetic to my motivations for selling. You want the drawing - it's yours, for $200, take it or leave it. You'll get more for your money than Helga got for the $4000 she spent ordering a Hewlett-Packard computer, from a "reputable" major retailer (the story's probably hit the business news by now, but I haven't been tracking it). The day after she ordered the computer, the company went into receivership. As an unsecured creditor, the most she can realistically expect out of the transaction is a dividend of 10 cents in the dollar - $3600 down the tubes in 24 hours. That's reputable Australian business practice.
Still got some abuse to vent? Well, here's the deal - the replacement for the comments facility I mentioned earlier. Use the "Flame Gummo" button - for a mere $5.00 donation via PayPal, you can vent your spleen, your gall bladder and your flatus-bloated bowels in an e-mail to me. I'm not kidding.
Now that's really affronted you, hasn't it? I can hear the huffing and puffing already - what have we come to, when someone is prepared to cop online abuse for $5.00 a throw. What sort of debased individual would demean himself that way?
Still not prepared to part with your money? Well, that leaves two last options.
If you're really so sickened by this post as you profess, put your vote where your mouth is. It won't cost you a cent. In the coming election, cast your vote so that it ends up - via whatever circuitous perambulation through our system of preference allocation suits you - so that it ends up with the ALP.
I'm not entirely rapt with Kevin Rudd either, but I'll still be casting my vote for the ALP. Because I want to live in a civil society again - I'm bloody desperate to live in a civil society again. Because I'm sick of the Liberal Party's Theatre of Cruelty - the ongoing soap opera of Work for the Dole (with the new spin off show, Welfare to Work) the big spectacles like Tampa and the Northern Territory intervention, the little kitchen-sink dramas like Federal Police raids on the homes of Australian Muslims that turn up nothing, the trashing of Mamdouh Habib's reputation, the Haneef Affair. This is a government that has repeatedly, and routinely, victimised private citizens for no better purpose than to give all you nice people out there someone you can despise.
As Ziggy Stellenstaub, my head-care specialist, said at our last get-together, if the Liberal Party win this one, they'll believe they can get away with anything. As someone who can confidently expect to be on the debasing and demeaning end of whatever "anything" succeeds Welfare to Work, whose next change of residence if something isn't done about providing affordable rental accomodation is going to be from an almost, but not quite affordable suburban house to the street, with all the asset losses that entails, I've got a very strong vested interest in seeing that "anything" forestalled.
Don't think much of that option either? Well, you can always don the mantle of sanctimonious hypocrite and denounce me in whatever public forum - be it a blog or a newspaper column - you can use. Just don't come around here expecting to kick Trotsky unless you're prepared to pay for the privilege. Your bigotted, "one-dream-fits-all and if it doesn't we'll bloody well make you fit it", idea of what this country should be doesn't interest me. It never really did.
Friday, October 19, 2007
A Dried Out Leaf (III)
Nailed the twisted little sucker! Now maybe I can move onto some more interesting stuff (in both the drawing, and the writing).
A Dried Out Leaf (II)
I recently heard, or read, an amusing little anecdote about Picasso. I've forgotten where.Picasso was asked - no doubt by somebody equally famous - for a drawing. He took a table napkin, drew on it for a couple of minutes, handed the napkin over and asked for a hundred dollars. Or francs maybe.
"A hundred dollars for that? But it only took you two minutes to draw!" was the aghast response.
"Plus fifty years of learning how to do it."
Today's teach myself how to draw exercise was to render the pencil sketch of the leaf in ink. It didn't work out very well as you'll see from the scan of the result: 13 pen strokes on a carefully drawn grid before I decided that I'd botched the job and gave up.
The exercise wasn't an attempt to outdo Picasso: my aim was to attack a problem that's stuffed up other drawings I've produced: the problem of hand tremor. You can see the effect of hand tremor in the image below, a detail of a panel from a new comic strip I've started working on. And stopped again, for this week at least.
Three simple mistakes killed today's drawing.
First up, I left the diagonal in the 6x6 grid of rectangles I drew as a guide for the copying. The diagonal was only there as a guide in the grid construction. But, because I neglected to erase it, as soon as I started drawing strokes that crossed it, it became attractive as an additional guide. The inevitable result - confusion, and misplaced strokes.
Second, I bottled out. Instead of pushing through that "OMG I'm actually going to use 110 gsm cartridge this time" barrier, I went the cheap crappy paper option.
I've forgotten the third. Whatever it was, it seems to have been fixed by taping the pencil drawing on a clean kitchen chopping board, and then over that a sheet of that tracing paper, so that I can work on a firm surface that I can tilt to any angle. That's a gunna do solution until I've got budget for a drawing board.
And with those mistakes identified and out of the way, what did I get right?
Well, first up, taking it slowly, visualising each stroke - even practising it in the air above the paper - before actually touching pen to paper worked well. That technique is a keeper.
Bizarre as it sounds, consciously putting white space between strokes works better - at this stage at least - than trying to connect them. The aim was to get used to drawing ink strokes quickly and cleanly - worrying about whether they connect just gets in the way.
Third, I stopped when as soon as it became obvious that it wasn't working. I'll tackle the job again later, under better conditions. There's a whole can of worms hidden in the previous sentence but I'm not going to open it today. Let's just say that some days, and for some purposes, it makes a lot more sense not to get back on the bicycle straight away. You need to take a little time to rub your sore bum first.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A Dried Out Leaf
Partly it's the season and partly it's the prospect that the Howard years really are ending on November the 24th that has me in a good mood today. The seasonal part is that whole
Whan that Aprill with his shoures sootething. I don't think my attitude to the election needs much explanation - once again, we've been given the chance to get rid of Australia's worst Prime Minister this century - probably the worst since Federation, for the meiosis challenged - and this time it looks like the electorate is finally going to take the opportunity.
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyn in swich licour
Of which virtu engendered is the flour;
There's one other major contributor to my good mood - I've found a new skill to learn. This time it's drawing. Looking back now, I realise that I was doomed to start teaching myself - or re-teaching myself - how to draw from the very first time I used The GIMP to doctor a photograph. Another major steps along the road to this new perdition was producing that first picture of The Indefatigable Wingnut (Episode 6 currently in production).
So now, every day starts with me running up the blinds in my study/den/home office and sitting down at the desk for a drawimg warm up. Today's warm up was drawing a dried out leaf I found in the back yard - the one in the picture (my HP OfficeJet LX lost a lot of the pencilled shading, so I've colorised it to bring out some of the contrast that was lost).
Drawing the leaf was a two stage process (just in case anyone's thinking of trying it at home). The first stage was to draw the leaf with the desk set up so that I couldn't see the drawing paper (a portable file holder works quite well for this if you're using A4 paper). The second was to draw it with the paper visible, but with my attention on the leaf, not the drawing. The only times I look at the drawing are when I've lost my way a bit, and need to reposition the pencil.
One interesting side effect of this new avocation is that I'm looking at the world around me with a new set of interests. A similar thing happened in my shutterbugging days - I would spend a lot of time thinking about how ordinary everyday scenes would look through a camera viewfinder and a lot more alert to the part light and shade play in our visual perception of our everyday world.
A second interesting side effect is that when I'm writing things in my head, they're more likely to be about the imaged world - the world as depicted in photographs, drawings and paintings - and how that imaged world can be manipulated. One form of digital image manipulation I serendipitously discovered yesterday gives me the willies - it's a dangerous little genie indeed and one day I'd like to thoroughly anethematise the idiots who decided to open its bottle.
But not today. I'd rather sit and look at the original drawing behind that scan and mentally rehearse the process of converting it to a line drawing in ink. I reckon the first stage will be to copy it with a 2H pencil to reduce it to a set of pen strokes that can be produced quickly and smoothly, with neither hand tremor or smudging from supporting the pen on the paper. Then a couple of rehearsals on scrap paper before I tackle it on 110 gsm cartridge.
To finish, I'll just throw out a couple of quick remarks that would otherwise nag at me, demanding to be written about, so that I can keep my head clear for what's important to me right now.
First, at the end of the nineteenth century, the French Third Republic was riven by The Dreyfus Affair. it divided the nation into two bitterly opposed factions - Dreyfussards and anti-Dreyfussards. According to the Wikipedia article cited (which prima facie is not to be trusted):
... The right-wing Vichy Regime was composed to some extent of old anti-Dreyfusards and their descendants. The Vichy Regime would later deport Dreyfus' grand-daughter to her death at Nazi extermination camps.Any historians out there looking for a topic for a blog post? A quick compare and contrast might while away an otherwise boring afternoon.
I'll conclude this not so quick remark by noting that since the turn of the century this government has managed to produce quite a few scandals of its own: the Tampa incident, the Habib case, the cases of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon, the Haneef Affair and Kevin Andrew's stupid remarks on Sudanese immigrants. Any would-be Zolas out there? Hello?
That wasn't so quick, really, was it? Let's see if I can get number two out of the way with a little more dispatch.
It's pretty bloody ludicrous when a soi-dissant iconoclast derides an artist for producing works with obvious iconoclastic intent as his (said blogger's) Lameass of the Month. Still, the blog's name is apt.
Yep, that did it. Just the right balance of pith and vinegar.
Monday, October 01, 2007
A Week with Wingnut
Monday Morning: Some diarist, eh? Two days into this silly venture and I've already missed a day.
So, what happened yesterday? Nothing much. A bit more sketching and scanning, ant then a lot of time out in the afternoon to put together a picture of the giant helium balloon I expect the ALP to enter in this year's inaugural Sydney Christmas (and not Thanksgiving) Parade. If the reports that the election will be Saturday November 24th are right and the polls hold up, it might turn out to be a thanksgiving parade anyway.
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