Brain Teaser

Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here is a brain teaser for you.

What if this was the only question on the exam to pass high school or college English and earn your diploma. Would you graduate?

What nine letter word in the English language still remains  a word when Eight of it’s letters are removed one by one?

Take a few minutes to try and come up with a nine letter word that fits the bill, then watch the attached video…for the startling results.

Watch the attached video….see if you can figure it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWZvvIZ3wNE

Welcome To The 21st Century

 

21st Century living

*Our Phones ~ Wireless

*Pens ~ nib less

*Cooking ~ Fireless

*Cars ~ Keyless

*Food ~ Fatless

*Tyres ~ Tubeless

*Dress ~ Sleeveless

*Youth ~ Jobless

*Stock Exchange ~ Shameless

* Leaders – Useless

*Govt.   ~ Spineless

* Opposition – Gutless

* Thinking – Brainless

* Solar power – Carbonless

*Relationships ~ Meaningless

*Attitude ~ Careless

*Wives ~ Fearless

*Babies ~ Fatherless

*Feelings ~ Heartless

*Education ~ Valueless

*Children ~ Mannerless

*People   ~ Lawless

*Youngsters ~ Regardless

*Traffic   ~ Senseless

*Taps      ~ Waterless

 

Everything is becoming LESS,

but still our hopes are ~ Endless.

 

In fact I am ~ Speechless !!

And, come to think of it NOW, Clueless !!

 

 

3 Easy Steps To Painting

Acrylic paint red pyrrole dab (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3 Easy Steps to Painting

Taken from Artist’s Network Online Magazine 5th April 2013
By Courtney Jordan, Online Editor of Artist’s Daily

Painting for beginners and painting for more advanced artists do not involve totally different processes. Only the familiarity with basic painting
instruction and the ease of executing those technical steps is what separates a beginner painter from an advanced one.

To learn how to paint–right here and right now–start with three easy steps that will allow you to grow in confidence and skill as an artist.

1. Learn What Your Materials Are All About
All oil painting lessons start with the fundamentals of materials because knowing how your paints respond allows you to fully understand how to exploit them to their fullest potential, and how to avoid any big mistakes.

Traditional oil paints consist of ground pigments combined with a drying oil, such as linseed, walnut, or poppyseed oil. A “drying oil” is one that absorbs oxygen from the air, which causes it to dry and harden over time, forming a flexible and resistant surface. Each pigment requires a different amount of oil to reach the consistency needed for painting. The amount of oil absorbed by a pigment directly affects its
drying time, which can be useful for an artist to know as he or she works in the studio to learn painting.

2. The Basics of Color
You can learn how to paint nearly every color with just three pigments. Exact hues vary from one manufacturer to the next, but you could go far with any company’s Indian yellow, naphthol red, and ultramarine blue.

Secondary colors, such as orange, green and purple, are made by mixing primary colors. Tertiary colors are those made by mixing a secondary color with a primary color. Other colors are made by adding a bit of white pigment (a process called tinting) or
adding a bit of black (a process called shading).

3. Learn to Paint
with Dimension: Layering with Acrylics
Acrylic painting lessons will usually include the basic techniques of manipulating washes to develop detailed paintings of landscapes, figures, still lifes and the like. This process sounds
more complicated than it truly is, as there are just three essential steps to learning how to use acrylic paint to give objects depth and dimension.

First, Apply a Thin Wash: Use either a wash or glaze of red oxide combined with a small amount of titanium white and diarylide yellow. Apply one thin wash to your surface to create a few shapes.
Second, Apply a Second Coat: Using the same color as in step one, mix a wash or glaze using slightly less water or gel. This value will be darker because there is more pigment. When the first coat is dry, apply a second coat to the areas to give the initial shapes more dimension. For example, the second coat could be applied to the front and side of a cube.

Third, Apply Shadows: After the second coat is dry, apply a third one of the same color to the areas where shadows from other objects could be. You may need another coat after this one dries to further delineate shadowed areas. All of this was done with the same color and shows how successive layers of a single color can easily add dimension to a basic painting sketch. –Hugh Greer

The Nine Ingredients Of Character Development

“I’m a Thriller” Book Talker (Photo credit: Enokson)

The 9 Ingredients of Character Development

Today’s guest newsletter comes from the Guide to Literary Agents blog and is written by Tom Pawlik. Taken from Writer’s Digest, 2nd April 2013

I remember back when cameras had something inside them called film that you had to get developed. For those of you college-aged or younger, that’s where a technician would treat the film with some chemicals inside a mysterious darkened room, and an image would magically appear on the special paper. But if the process went awry, you could end up with an underdeveloped image that was dark or fuzzy, or one that was over-exposed and therefore too washed out to see clearly. The key to getting a crisp clear photograph largely depended on how the technician developed the film.

If we want readers to have a vibrant mental image of our characters, we have to spend some time in the dark room. And that is what’s called a metaphor

WHAT IS A CHARACTER-DRIVEN  NOVEL ANYWAY?

I don’t write character-driven novels. Heck, I’m not even sure what the term means. I used to think it was when an author spent hundreds of pages muddling around inside a character’s head just to fill the gaps between a couple paragraphs of action.

I prefer to write plot-driven suspense thrillers. But how does the low-brow thriller writer create good characters? I’m still a novice on the subject so this is by no means a definitive exposition, just 9 ingredients I jotted down to make a clever acrostic: CHARACTER.

(Look here for a list of thriller agents.)

1. Communication style: How does your character talk? Does she favor certain words or phrases that make her distinct and interesting? What about the sound of her voice? Much of our personality comes through our speech, so think about the way your character is going to talk. Her style of communication should be distinctive and unique.

2. History: Where does your character come from? Think out his childhood and adolescence. What events shaped his personality? What did his father do for a living? How about his mother? How many siblings does he have? Was it a loving family or an abusive, dysfunctional one? What events led him to the career choices he made? You may not need to provide all this background to your reader, but it’s good to know as the writer. It helps give him substance in your mind as well.

3. Appearance: What does she look like? This may be the least important ingredient to make your character a person to the reader, but you should still know it in your own mind. Not every character needs to be drop-dead gorgeous, by the way. Most people aren’t.

(Learn why an agent will stop reading your Chapter 1.)

4. Relationships: What kind of friends and family does he have? How does he relate to them? Is he very social or reclusive, or somewhere in between? People can be defined by the company they keep, so this can be a good way to define your character.

5. Ambition: Just as this is the central letter of the acrostic, so too this concept is absolutely central to your character and plot. What is her passion in life? What goal is she trying to accomplish through your story? What is her unrecognized, internal need and how will she meet it?

6. Character defect: Everyone has some personality trait that irritates his friends or family. Is he too self-centered? Too competitive? Too lazy? Too compliant? Too demanding of others? Don’t go overboard on this. After all, you want your reader to like the character. But he’ll feel more real if he has some flaw. This is usually connected to his unrecognized need (see Ambition) and often gets resolved through his character arch.

7. Thoughts: What kind of internal dialogue does your character have? How does she think through her problems and dilemmas? Is her internal voice the same as her external? If not, does this create internal conflict for her? In real life we don’t have the benefit of knowing someone’s innermost thoughts, but a novel allows us to do just that, so use it to your advantage.

(How do you follow up with an agent or editor who hasn’t replied to your query?)

8. Everyman-ness: How relatable is your character? While James Bond is fun to watch on screen, most of us aren’t uber-trained special agent-assassins so it’s a little hard to relate to him on a personal level. On the other hand, Kurt Russell’s character in the movie Breakdown was far more ordinary and relatable, creating a more visceral experience. Be careful not to make your character too elite or he may be too difficult to live vicariously through. And that, after all, is the key to suspense.

9. Restrictions: More than a personality flaw, what physical or mental weakness must your character overcome through her arch? After all, even Superman had Kryptonite. This helps humanize your character, making her more sympathetic and relatable.

The goal is to make your readers feel something for your character. The more they care about them, the more emotion they’ll invest in your story. And maybe that’s the secret.

Maybe every novel is character-driven after all.

A Paperless Future?

 

5 Top Rated Tablet PCs (Photo credit: sidduz)

This short clip humorously highlights the fact that no digital tablet will ever replace the comfort of the paper.

Certainly not for me anyhow. My eyes get sore reading off a tablet but not when I am reading a book. Also you can’t smell and feel a tablet. Books all the way for this little black duck

 

http://www.flixxy.com/the-paperless-future-emma.htm#.UUFNFRzimBV

Magic of Computers

Painted by Chinese Artists, Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi and Zhang An, oil on canvas, 2006.

This painting is truly remarkable. Even more amazing though, is that the canvas has been computerized. When you click on the link below, a much bigger version of the computerized painting appears.

Run your cursor over the people. The program tells you who they are – every single one of them. BUT click on a person and you obtain the individual’s life history.
This is fascinating… Can keep you busy for hours!

http://cliptank.com/PeopleofInfluencePainting.htm

Training the Mind to be Receptive

Fred White (Photo credit: ChrisM70)

This was taken from Writer’s Digest Oct 30 2012

To write, you need ideas. But you also need ideas for how to develop those ideas. While it’s true that ideas are everywhere, writers benefit from strategies of idea recognition and idea development. This tutorial will introduce you to several idea-generating and idea-developing strategies that will help you become a productive and prolific writer.

This tutorial is taught by Fred White, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Santa Clara University. Fred has taught courses in writing and literature for nearly forty years. In 1996, he won the Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence. The author of several books on writing and literary criticism, Fred’s most recent book is Where Do You Get Your Ideas? A Writer’s Guide to Transforming Notions into Narratives.

This 29-minute tutorial video focuses on ‘idea-getting’ and ‘idea-developing’ strategies:

• How to generate story ideas by becoming a keen observer of people
• Finding story ideas in the natural world
• Forming the idea-getting habit
• The importance of being both an idea fisher and an idea factory
• Becoming a “master chef” of story ideas

 

This tutorial will inspire your ideas to flow freely!

{The strategies presented in this tutorial are not covered in Fred White’s book Where Do You Get Your Ideas? A Writer’s Guide to Transforming Notions into Narratives—this tutorial covers additional strategies. We highly recommend combining this tutorial with the book to pull back the curtain on the magic of remarkable idea generation.}

Lack of Education

World Report (RTÉ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

To be honest I wasn’t sure if I should put this up on the blog or not. I found it quite frightening to think that these people don’t seem to have the most  basic general knowledge of the outside world, their own country, or current affairs. What are their educators teaching them in their schools, colleges, universities ? It is quite disturbing to think that such a powerful country as America has such a low standard of education. I would like to hear from some of my American bloggers to know if this is the general level of education or not? I do know that when I was in America quite a few years ago there wasn’t much news from the wider world on the television. It was mainly about America. However, that might have changed now. In this day and age there is so much information available on the internet, newspapers, and television etc it is sad to think that these people are not more aware of the wider world. I am not being critical. I am just shocked by what I saw on this video.

http://youtu.be/_mWtWz_aGyk

Feeling Grumpy and Frustrated

Ok! so today I am reading all the posts of the blogs I subscribe to on the Reader. I go through them every day and click on LIKE for the ones that I enjoy. I have been noticing the last few days that when I go back into the Reader all my likes are gone. So I started going on the individual blogs and saw that none of my likes have shown up. Has anyone else had this problem? Is this something new with WordPress? I was annoyed because I try to encourage other bloggers, and now it looks like all my hard work has gone to waste GRRR!

I think the LIKES are an important part of blogging. They show that we appreciate the time and effort our fellow bloggers have put into their posts. It also helps to create a community feel. I enjoy going through my blog to see who has liked my posts, and I am sure that other bloggers feel the same. It makes you feel accepted and vindicated. So my friends if you have been missing my LIKES, never fear I have been doing them. I am not sure if this is a temporary problem with WordPress or they have changed something. Anyhow, whatever it is I hope they take note and fix it soon.

BLOG IDEAS (Photo credit: owenwbrown)

Amazing Flash Mob

Orchestra (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Isn’t it amazing what music does? It brings people together and inspires them. Music brings back memories good and bad, like a soundtrack to our lives. It can take us to a higher plane. I had goosebumps and tears in my eyes while I was watching this. Simply Amazing! I think it’s sad that the orchestras of the world don’t go out in public and give impromptu performances. I was watching the faces in the crowd, adults and children,and the joy there was something to behold. For people who have never been to a concert it would be a wonderful experience. Enjoy!  I certainly did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=GBaHPND2QJg&feature=youtu.be