This one feels sloppy to me 🙂 There's so much more I can improve upon but after spending three days on this one, I felt that I needed a break. So moving on ...

What I wanted to do was try my hand at doing a landscape and I learnt a lot of things that I should improve upon and a few things that would be useful. But overall, I don't feel as if I did the idea justice.

#Painting #DigitalPainting #DigitalArt
A digital painting of a river w…

Sometimes I'm not sure if art/entertainment is used to try and mould people's thinking, or if movies (and other artwork) simply reflect the biases/prejudices inculcated into the general populace...

I'm watching "Kadaisi Ulaga Por" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32991468/) at the moment and it does make me wonder about how the everyday Indian, or specifically Tamilian, on the street views the world. Is the movie a true reflection of how they perceive the world? Or is that how they are meant to think the world is after watching the movie?

The movie is set in the near future and sees India as surrounded by enemies. China, Russia, and the Middle East breaks away from the UN and sets up their own rival organiztion. Sri Lanka and other nations join them. India stands as the last holdout in the region.

In several scenes, they have a "war criminal" from Sri Lanka attacking and killing Indians as this new group invades India.

I have to wonder — is this how India sees itself? The one lone holdout against enemy forces in the region? Or is this propaganda to get people to see themselves as such?

If this was one single example, I wouldn't have thought so. But in addition to the constant anti-Pakistani imagery in Indian movies, I've seen emerging anti-Chinese messaging in Indian movies in the past few years.

Sure, this also mirrors what you see from the US, which also appears to be upping its anti-Chinese messaging.

But in a world where everybody seems to think that getting the message out to the most number of people, whether it's true or not, is the most important thing, how do I determine what really is true? How does the general person on the street learn to differentiate between propaganda and entertainment?

And how much do these entertainers care about the messaging they disseminate?

#Movies #Tamil #India #PropgandaOrEntertainment

This one's called "Lonely Planet" 🙂

Again, mostly playing with shapes, colours, lights, and perspective.

#Painting #DigitalArt #DigitalPainting
A green grassy field with rows …

I call this one "Mysterious Pyramid" 🙂

My main aim was to explore shadow, lighting and colour, but I didn't want to just do plain geometric shapes. I wanted something a litlte more interesting.

Hence, the fog shrouded pyramid.

#Painting #DigitalArt #DigitalPainting
A digitial painting of a stone …

I finished my third painting over the weekened. I am much happier with this one since the columns in the painting turned out like I'd hoped they would.

There are a few things I probably still would want to improve upon but I guess that's the point right? To continually strive to improve upon what you do? 🙂

I am happier at my ability to transfer images in my mind on to digital canvas and I think this is something that'll I stick with this time around.

#Painting #DigitalArt #DigitalPainting
A digital painting of four marb…

I finished my first digital painting a few days ago. It was a quick painting but even as I did it, I knew it had certain shortcomings 🙂

I moved on to my second painting to try to improve upon these.

The first issue I noticed with my first painting was that it was flat — it had no depth. So, with the second one I tried to introduce that. I succeeded in some cases, but feel I failed in others 😛

The other things I wanted to do was give some texture to different elements and to add a sense of light and shadow. While I did a few things to add this, I feel I did very badly at those things.

I've been watching videos on how to draw and one thing which struck me was that a lot of the videos out there tell you how to do one thing — like draw an apple — but not why you do certain things a certain way.

Now this is by no means a slam on those people who put out "how-to" videos. Any information that anybody creates, especially the free resources, to help others learn how to do something, is a great service in my opinion. But I do wish that people added a bit more of the concepts to some of these videos 😊

What I'm saying is, if you simply show how to draw an apple, then at least some people (like me) only learn how to do that one thing. But if you tell them, "this is why you do such and such a thing", then I can formulate a process (or workflow) that I can use to draw other things.

Maybe this is self-evident to a lot of folks. I don't know. But I don't get some of this straight away 🙂 For example, I do understand that you need a source of light and that an object needs to show the light and shadow in order for it to appear three-dimensional. But I don't always put it together with somebody saying "place a lighter colour splotch here and a darker shading here".

One of the best examples I saw explainig this was this free Udemy video course:
https://www.udemy.com/course/art-fundamentals-in-one-hour/

(I have no affiliation Hardy Fowler but that course was helpful in filling in some gaps and so I'm linking to it in case it helps somebody else on the same journey. Also, he has some interesting tutorials on YouTube.)

So I'm doing a lot more reading on the subject of light and shadow and how to add texture to shapes and am preparing to work on the next painting ...

#DigitalArt #Painting #DigitalOilPainting
A digitial painting showing som…

As a child I really wanted to be able to draw. I tried to teach myself drawing by tracing over artwork I liked, looking at stuff and drawing etc. but I was never very good at it.

As I grew older, I found others at school who could draw effortlessly. I joined up with them and wrote books where they did the artwork. But I still wanted to draw.

A while back on Mastodon I discovered @MichaelWhelan and his feed. I already knew Michael Whelan from his book covers but his feed made me realize the scope of how many of the book covers I remembered from over the years were by him.

The most memorable for me personally will always be "Destiny's Road". The book itself is very memorable for some reason — I remember how I felt when I read certain passages, how the sun felt on my skin that day, where I was and so on. But I picked up that book from a second-hand store over 30 years ago because of the cover and I still remember Michael's cover notes in the book describing the various elements like the fool cage.

So, seeing all the great covers that Michael has created over the years has made me want to try art in some form again. I know that I'm not very good at drawing/sketching, but I thought I might be better at painting perhaps?

So I gave it a try with digital painting and I discovered that I loved oil painting on the computer 🙂For some reason, I really like how the oil paints "feel" on the screen and how it works when you mix paints.

I created my first painting yesterday. It's not very good and I hadn't actually looked at techniques or tutorials when I did it. But I think I'm going to give this a go and see if I can get better at it.

At worst, I'll have fun trying all this out. And that's not a bad thing, right?
A digital oil painting showing …

Ever get the feeling that macOS (and the Apple ecosystem in general) is slowly slipping away into a bog or something?

Switched over to Sequoia several weeks ago and suddenly yesterday my Remote Desktop app keeps disconnecting after being up for a few minutes.

Check online and people are like "This is a known issue with Sequoia". Someone mentioned turning off teh built-in firewall fixes the issue. Somebody else comes in and says "Oh no, that's too drastic. Just add an exception for Remote Desktop".

Try that and the issue keeps on happening — as others mentioned in the same thread. Others mentioned that Remote Desktop is now Windows App and updating fixes it. For me, it doesn't.

Somebody else mentioned that allowing the app to browse the local network fixes the issue. And the latest update to Windows App suggests that they'd left out this option. But my local network setting is correct and updating to the latest Windows App didn't fix the issue either.

So, I've finally turned off the firewall on macOS. So far, no issues with Remote Desktop/Windows App since then.

And that's not all of it.

Try to build something on device using Xcode and Xcode wants to connect to your device and get info. But this connection doesn't always work. So it'll sit their churning its wheels but doesn't time out. So if you don't notice this is happening, you'll have no idea why nothing is building, or is taking way too long.

You have to disconnect and reconnect the cable to (possibly) fix it. And don't even get me started if you want to build on Apple Watch.

All I can say is that things are getting just too annoying at this point for me with various bits of the Apple eco system and I don't like it.

#Apple #macOS #RemoteDesktop #WindowsApp #Connections #Firewall

After some thought, I decided to leave Automattic last week. It's the first time I've been without a job, and while I'm excited for the chance to rest and focus on personal projects for a while,

I'm also a bit anxious about finding a new position in these uncertain times. So, if you're looking for a remote Product Designer who can also code and illustrate, or if you know someone who is looking, I'd love to hear from you.

I'm looking for a student for an M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Calgary. *This is a fully funded position.*

The project: building tools to help understand how "retro" video games were made under amazingly constrained circumstances. While it's a CS position, this is interdisciplinary work done in collaboration with archaeologists and others.

Needs: strong coding skills, good writing abilities. Ideally: low-level, reverse engineering, or compiler experience.

Good friend of mine was fired today because he refused to throw someone under the bus. If you have any leads for jobs for an experienced and highly talented senior full stack developer who has a spine, convictions, drive, and a willingness to advocate for his team let me know. United States, full remote or Colorado.

To my friends/colleagues in the professional fantasy field: writers, artists, programmers, anyone whose job involves making fantasy worlds and telling stories therein:

Please help me spread the word on your various socials that I'm looking for collaborators to help me develop an IP I've been working on. (1/?)

Well, regarding this catastrophic situation I’m free to get a new job (permanent role, no freelancing).

30 yrs in software development. Currently @Swift / #SwiftUI for #macOS / #iOS / #iPadOS. #Remote only - preferably in German-speaking countries!

Thanks for boosting. 🙏

#FediHire #SoftwareDevelopment

https://chaos.social/@phranck/113112167455156344

Writers and artists: reply with a link to one of your works. And feel free to tell us about it.

Everyone: let's check through the replies and buy some creations and support some creators.

I'm on month four of being unemployed so thought I'd post here. I have decade of full stack web dev experience. Expert in #react, #javascript, and #typescript. Looking for fully remote or hybrid positions in the Portland, OR area.

#FediHire #getfedihired

https://rxresu.me/gumbyscout/default

Today apparently Apple will announce the new iPhone.

This is the first year since I began iOS development where I don't care at all 🙂

I'm already about 95% out the door in terms of using Apple. I have found my replacements and they are at least half as cheap as Apple hardware. The only thing I'm not sure about is the when.

I'm probably going to let my current Apple devices come to point where I'm not happy with their performance (or they die) and then I'll be switching one by one to non-Apple hardware.

At least, that's the plan. I guess how this will turn out as the years go by, but I'm certainly not watching the Apple event today. That's a start.

One of my top 100 fave linguistics facts.

A calque is a word made by translating word-by-word from a foreign language. A loan word just uses borrows a foreign word - as it says.

The word loanword is a calque of the German noun Lehnwort. In contrast, the term calque is a loanword, from the French noun calque ("tracing, imitation, close copy")

#linguistics #words #writing

I have greatly revised my introduction. Whilst you might not want to take a look, I think you'll like that I clearly state that I boost posts that announce authors' work and publications. I do this pretty much unconditionally, as I believe it's the right thing to do, but there is a caveat.

https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110470545911654524

#boostingIsSharing

#writing #author #fiction #writer #writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon

Hey #getfedihired 🌿 My name is Mattie and I’m an artist looking for work! I primarily do illustrations but I also do graphic design on the side! If you’re interested, get in touch with me! Any and all boosts and likes are much appreciated 💜 #illustration #lookingforwork #fantasyart #fantasyillustration

I’m a 18‐year‐old transgirl from Eastern Germany. My parents are right‐wing extremists and have a problem with trans people. I am currently staying with my grandma, but she wants me out by 8 September latest.

I am going to stay with a friend from 9 to 10 September, but I still need a place to crash from 8 to 9 September, and also a more permanent solution for the time after. I am not bound to any particular place, but I would like to stay in Germany for now.

I am also looking for a job in IT, preferably in systems operations. I have been working with Linux in my free time for a few years now and I am really into NixOS. CV upon request.

#aid
#MutualAidRequest
#mutualaid
#mutualaidboost