English is about as bad as Western languages get.
Like, the past tense of “go” is “went”. Explain THAT.
It should totally be “goed”
English is about as bad as Western languages get.
Like, the past tense of “go” is “went”. Explain THAT.
It should totally be “goed”
Yup. Consider “comb”, “bomb” and “tomb”. I don’t envy people learning English for the first time as an adult. And syllable emphasis. Good luck with that. In French at least, the emphasis falls 100% on the last syllable of the word.
It’s not so much the irregular verbs that are the main challenge.
It really is that the same combination of letters can be pronounced very, very different indeed (i.e., no rhyme or reason for us pattern-seekers).
This has been immortalized in this “poem”:
https://ncf.idallen.com/english.html
Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely going to share it with the French participants in an English course I help teach when we resume in October. It’s long enough that I can probably get around the class 2 or 3 times, having each student read one verse at a time.
At your own risk ![]()
They are all retirement age and well-educated. They’ll love it. There will be much laughter. ![]()
English is of course 3 languages in a trench coat which from time to time mugs other languages and stuffs them in it’s pockets.
Latin, the various regional dialects of old English (west Saxon mostly won out because of Aelfraed and his progeny), old Norse (more in northern regional dialects), old French. Then there was the great vowel shift in the middle English years that took us further away from the other Germanic languages. Modern Frisian is the closest living language to English.
What’s the medium used on this? Really great by the way!
G’day young Paul. Here goes -
The painting consists of 4 plywood panels over pinewood frames, each measuring 120cms wide X 150cms high & bolted together through the frames, which overall makes it 2.4 metres wide X 3 metres high (or a poofteenth under 8ft wide X 10ft high). If you look closely you can see the joins.
The medium is acrylic paint over a black gesso mixture. To give it texture before applying paint, I mixed the black gesso with Q Cell spheres (microscopic glass balls), which I applied to the board by daubing with a large brush. We had our own paint laboratory & workshop at Newcastle Uni, so we could invent all sorts of weird concoctions.
After applying the gesso mixture, I drew the subject onto the panel by enlarging it from one of my photos using the grid system. I then applied the acrylic paints & viola, Bob’s yer uncle.
The subject itself is a clutch control wheel on an abandoned railway crane, of which I had previously taken the photo at Broadmeadow Locomotive Yards in Newcastle, Australia.
Here’s a couple more below from the same railway crane, using the same technique, only this time on canvas.
So, thanks for your interest young Paul.
Cheers ‘n beers ‘n bourbons too from ol’ Chriso. And let’s not forget the Bass Buzzin’ while we’re at it.
That’s awesome! Thanks for the in depth description. I have enjoyed using acrylic paint and dabbled a little with oil. I need to get back into it. I want to learn to do portraits with oil paint. I’m not sure why, I have felt a pull in that direction.
Anyway, I appreciate you sharing some of your art with us!
I did some trench art back in the day while deployed, maybe I’ll scan it and post it tomorrow or the next day.
Holy crap, there’s BLACK gesso? Ex-wife #2 was a superb artist. She built her own panels for 3-5 panel works and used white gesso on all of them before painting with acrylics. She used colors for shading. Animals and landscapes. Never people. One my favorite work of hers, the zebra that dominated the work had about 50 different colors on it. While being anatomically perfect, the colors looked natural. She could do things with acrylics that were pretty unique. The School of the Art Institute in Chicago asked her to teach a class on her techniques. Like everything else in life, you know, like selling her works or being a reasonable person to deal with, she passed. I loved coming home from a business trip, grabbing a scotch and sit and watch her paint. What a talent! What a difficult person to live with. I wish her well, wherever she is.
I had a seven year relationship with an artist and use exactly the same description!
I remember fondly the sunday mornings where I pretended to sleep and watched her paint across the room. She was often wearing (only) one of my shirts, the morning light flowing through the thin fabric … me being in total awe (she was very beautiful, but also very difficult).
Since then I love the process of creating art, not so much the presentation of the finished painting (like presenting it in a gallery and having all those arty-farty people discussing “the arts”).
Unless it’s a Warhol Campbell’s soup can. Then, it just makes me hungry. But not for Campbell’s soup. ![]()
Hahahaha!
In her later phase she was into “informalism”, which is basically only textures, no forms or shapes. Or as I called it: “barf on the wall” (which might have contributed to the end of that relationship :-))
Not drawings - but thought you all might enjoy a couple of my music related artworks. I dye, paint, print, and stitch them.
Titled
Bach Cello Suite no.1 gigue
Sassy Brass
I’ve got an upright bass piece that needs to get done but at some point there WILL be an electric bass piece to add to the mix.
Enjoy!
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