Live Life Randomly

Art, Videos and other things that touch my soul in pleasantly Random ways

[thechekhov]

I made a thing! I was thinking about this for a few days - because I realized that when I was young, I was also frustrated about being given the same advice over and over - without really knowing what it meant!!

Here’s 5 techniques which I have done before which have helped me grow as an artist, which are good for 5-minute warmups or just straight up challenges for your sketchbook! 

Obviously, these are not the ONLY techniques - they’re just the ones I find most fun! And maybe they’re not the most ‘correct’ ones out there, but it’s better than another comic about practicing more, right? 

Good luck to everyone on their drawings!

[thecaffeinebookwarrior-deactiva]

Honestly, as an artist and illustrator myself, seeing all the posts yelling at newbies to “practice” is so frustrating to me. It feels condescending, and would have had me running for the hills in no time if I was just starting out. This is much more helpful.

[gatobob-deactivated20240303]

REAL GOOD POST

Thank you! I will stop saying ‘Practice’ by itself now!!!!

[alloverthegaf]

in case you didn’t know, The Dixie Chicks, an extremely successful country singer trio in America, recently changed their name to The Chicks, as ‘Dixie’ is apparently a nostalgic name for the Civil War-era South.

They have also released a new song and video, which is what I really wanted to bring up - I would never have known about it, because I am in no way involved or subscribed to country music, but my mum learned about it and passed it on to me and I’m so glad she did - it’s called ‘March March’ and is absolutely worth listening to but 100% MORE worth watching. It REALLY doesn’t matter what music genres you love or hate I really think you, like me, if you believe in activism and progressive change, will at least feel a little moved by this music video. It’s very well done and quite powerfully edited. Here’s the youtube link.

[alloverthegaf]

awesome other stuff to know about them, thank you @littleredruns​ and @dancingatbraebent​

[knottahooker]

No, seriously, you need to watch this.

[clockways]

Give it a watch.

This isn’t what most of us think of country these days- the nationalist pop songs where the twang supposedly makes it country. This is some proper old school Johnny Cash sort of music and it’s got something to say.

[scifigrl47]

in 2019, Ken Burns and PBS just did a really fascinating retrospective on Country Music.  And one of the things that resonated with me was that if you were interested in the folk tradition, or female singer-songwriters in the 90′s, chances are you listened to country.  Because that’s where the women who were forced out by the pop machine ended up.  

9/11 changed that in one fell swoop.  Almost overnight, I went from listening to, and buying, a LOT of country music, to feeling alienated and frightened by it.  The aggressive, jingoistic, and very, very masculine wave of post 9/11 country music swept away a lot of excellent artists, and left us with the ‘bro country’ that we’re still dealing with today.

BRB, off to dust off a few cds.

[writing-prompt-s]

You are a devout Paladin trying to prevent the resurrection of a dark goddess. Ultimately you fail. When the goddess awakens, she claims that she doesn’t know who she is or what has happened. After a few days you’re struggling to determine if she actually has amnesia or if she is just lying.

[dycefic]

It wasn’t what I had expected.

I had expected…. Oh…  the usual things. Clouds of smoke, maniacal laughter, some monstrous being… they were always monstrous, whether fair or foul of face.

Not this. Not an egg.

It is already hatching, a jagged opening showing in the greyish, mottled shell. Even as I watch, small pale hands show, gripping the edge and breaking another piece of it away.

When I approach the egg and look down into it, I see a child. I would have guessed her at eight or nine, if I wasn’t seeing her hatching before my eyes. If I didn’t know she was Rek’na reborn.

When she sees me she lifts her little arms to me, like a toddler wanting to be picked up. “Help… pl’s…” she says pitifully, her voice wavering and uncertain. Are they her first words? They must be. Even though I know what she is, they pull at my heart. This is a child. I have never harmed a child, even one that might grow to be the darkest of goddesses. When she looks up at me, I know I can’t do it now.

I open the egg a little further, so the sharp edges won’t scrape her soft skin. When I lift her out with gauntleted hands, I try to be gentle. There were preparations made for her hatching, I can see… lengths of silk cloth to wrap her in, dishes of raw meat and bowls of what might be wine or blood. The priests and priestesses had their plans.

But they are dead or fled, and I wrap the child in my cloak and cradle her against one shoulder. She wraps her small arms around my neck trustingly, and I carry her out of the hidden temple to where I hid my horses. There I dress her in a spare shirt – four of her would fit inside it, for I am big and she is very small – and feed her her first meal. I don’t have fresh meat, and am not sure it would be wise to give it to her if I did, but I feed her bean porridge with salted meat, and a round of dry journey-bread, and she eats it eagerly.

I know I should destroy her. But she is a child.

Keep reading

[how-do-homan]

How To Tame an Artist

To tame a wild artist, walk up to they when they are not drawing, and offer them a pen. A good pen, your best pen. The artist will begin to test the pen to see if it is to their liking. If the artist liked the pen, they will:

• begin to smile slightly

• draw multiple squiggly lines

• stare at the pen in awe

• take a picture of the pen

• tell you ‘this is a good pen!’

• seem reluctant to hand it back

If the pen is to the artist’s liking, give it to them to keep. You have now tamed the wild artist. If you wish to continue you friendship do not ask the artist to draw you.

[canadiangold]

best thing i learned today: “The Loud American” role in Japanese businesses

[canadiangold]

nobody asked but imma explain anyway

no idea how it came up, but my programming prof was talking about his friend who works for Nintendo Japan who’s secondary role is The Loud American, and my prof explained what that was and how it came about

see, in Japan you do not talk back to your boss. you just don’t, even if they have stupid ideas and want the company to act on them. Like Nissan did sometime back. But since the other employees couldn’t do anything about this terrible idea that would ruin the company, they called in an American who had no reservations about telling the boss that their stupid idea was a stupid idea

and that’s just become a role in Japanese businesses, where they keep an American on staff who plays up the American stereotype and tells the boss what the Japanese employees can’t or won’t out of societal norms

[friendly-neighborhood-ehrhardt]

dream job.

[loafed-beans-deactivated2020082]

How much do they pay per hour for me to sit around and every so often storm into the bosses office and call his ideas stupid as fuck?

[madsiemoon]

🌱Some helpful tips to keep healthy house plants🌱

[zenyattasperceptrons]

“Most autistic people who are capable of formulating questions have frequently experienced the following scenario: We ask for information that we need in order to prepare ourselves for a new experience. Instead of answering our questions, NT people tell us that we don’t need to ask these questions at all. We just need to relax and stop being so anxious. The fact is that being able to ask questions, and getting clear answers to our questions, and thus knowing what to expect, are often the very things autistic people need in order to be able to relax and not be anxious. Asking a lot of questions about the details of a situation is usually not a “maladaptive behavior” that increases an autistic person’s anxiety. More often it’s an adaptive strategy that an autistic person is using to reduce anxiety or to prevent being in an anxiety-provoking situation in the first place. It’s very important for us to have thorough explanations and ample opportunities to ask questions.”

— Jim Sinclair, “Cultural Commentary: Being Autistic Together”

[theconcealedweapon]

In other words, people are more relaxed when they know how to do things.

How is that not an obvious statement?

[misaimed-archer]

Or as I once put it, “I don’t like people who refuse to give step two.”

[breelandwalker]

How and What are very important. And sometimes equally vital is WHY.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Fred Rogers wrote a song about that, way back in 1968:

I like to be told        When you’re going away,        When you’re going to come back,        And how long you’ll stay,        How long you will stay,      I like to be told.

I like to be told        If it’s going to hurt,        If it’s going to be hard,        If it’s not going to hurt.        I like to be told.      I like to be told.

It helps me to get ready for all those things,        All those things that are new.        I trust you more and more        Each time that I’m      Finding those things to be true.

I like to be told        'Cause I’m trying to grow,        'Cause I’m trying to learn        And I’m trying to know.        I like to be told.        I like to be told.       

I once heard him say in an interview about his show that what he said to the camera wasn’t just aimed only at the kids who were watching, but also to grownup care-givers who might be in the room, or in the next room over, but still within earshot. Because maybe they, too, had difficult childhoods, and never had a good parenting model. So he was giving advice and permission to grieve their own unmet needs without saying “You Should.”

(source: The Fred Rogers Neighborhood Archive)

Truly a man who lived by his principles.

[aesthesiamag]

Harmonia (@honeiee)

Harmonia Rosales repaints classic artworks to show God is a black woman

Ahead of her latest show, New World Conciousness, the painter reflects on why we must reject the stale, pale, male traditions of art

[catchymemes]

[sssquiddles]

[serene-elysium]

another pic, different angle

[randomklutz]

^ important

[probsjosh]

big boy

[tincansamurai]

michaelangelo could put all that work into perspective tricks and he still couldn’t sculpt a titty

[i-aint-even-bovvered]

Look, he was a genius, but he was also Gay

[toocooltobehipster]

windows users, save money using these free apps!!

[femboss]

other fab programs that are absolutely 100% free:

recuva - accidentally deleted something in the recycling bin? recover it back with this program!

speccy - tells you the specs of your computer, among other things

defraggler - defrag the SHIT out of your hard drive and clean it right up

[unlimitedgoats]

This is a great post what makes it even better is that most of these you can get from Ninite which will download and install the latest versions of all available software ALL AT ONCE without you having to worry about adware or the annoying clutter (toolbars, changing your default search engine) that sometimes comes with their individual installers. So, yeah. Have at it folks.

[attackofthekillerderk-deactivat]

For posterity.

[youngatheart34-deactivated20151]

Good lord this is awesome.

[atesan]

HAIR LOVE (2019) dir Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downing Jr., Bruce W. Smith

[logarithmicpanda]

First time crying in 2020 heyyyy

[oursuperadventure]

Sarah and Stef here - we want to show our solidarity with the protesters and protests happening in America right now. Police brutality is unacceptable and it’s undeniably aimed at black people more than anyone else. It’s heartbreaking and change needs to happen.

Please check out blacklivesmatters.carrd.co for links and places to donate if you can. This is a real crisis and we need to show our support.

If you disagree with this, please read more into this and reassess. This comic by @chainsawsuit​ addresses one of the most common arguments that we’ve seen spring up elsewhere.

Please look out for each other and take care.

[the-bear-woman]

The Australian Ballet is doing Alice in Wonderland again and on one hand I’ve seen it before, and on the other, their Queen of Hearts has my favourite costume in anything every

[the-bear-woman]

It’s just this and her court pushes her around the stage on wheels and every act it gets taller until she towers over everyone

[the-bear-woman]

Also in act 3 (I think) it swings open at the front and her husband is sitting inside reading a newspaper

[the-bear-woman]

I saw this again on Tuesday so here are some things I’d forgotten about:

This is the only Alice adaptation I’ve ever seen that doesn’t cut the caucus race

The mad hatter wears taps throughout and it’s so jarring and surprising it’s perfect

The executioner shadows almost everyone who dances with the Queen

Lewis Carroll is a character in the ballet and becomes the white rabbit who leads Alice into wonderland which is bad and wrong because Carroll is the dodo but does work very well

They started dropping rose petals from the ceiling onto the audience when Alice looked through the door to the garden and it was utterly magic

The Cheshire Cat is made of about 10 different puppets that dance around the stage

Which reminds me Alice is styled after Alice Liddell rather than the John Tenniel illustrations

I don’t think the king of hearts actually dances he just wanders around looking confused

[paraphernaliawagon]

here’s a video

[paraphernaliawagon]

more. (btw this is a parody/reference to the very famous “rose adagio” from sleeping beauty)

[paraphernaliawagon]

the Caterpillar is pretty neat too

(all of these videos are from the Royal Ballet’s productions in 2014 and 2017)

[tzikeh]

Y’all the Mad Hatter is Stephen McRae

AKA

SKIMBLESHANKS THE RAILWAY CAT

[madsiemoon]

🌱Some helpful tips to keep healthy house plants🌱

[huffpost]

[angstycabindad]

Margaret Cho is a goddess - I’m entertaining no contrary opinions as this time.

[chatsvoid]

Maybe it’s not that your best isn’t good enough. 

Maybe it’s that you keep redefining success so you never reach it.

[bellaxiao]

[falconpunchyourmom]

Parallel Earth.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

AMAZING

[thaebae]

I LOVE

[honey-pot-hobbies]

As a white person I feel obligated to reblog this because we need to see this sort of shit more especially in tv shows and stuff like that, will help the future children be less dickish

[sweetsweetemo]

These pictures speak so loud

[pimentogirl]

Uhuh. If you’re white and this makes you feel uncomfortable… good… it should. Having our own privilege shoved in our faces SHOULD be uncomfortable because, for the most part, we’re blind to it.