CHIT CHAT in VOLTVILLE

[tmcase]

Hey Voltville,
BF made it here safe and sound around 8pm. He was miserable, exhausted from the 4 day train ride and dirty. He said he smelled like a barn and wouldn't kiss me. I made him and he didn't smell bad. He was just uncomfortable going 4 days without a shower. He was hungry and tired and wanted to get home but I had to show him his tumbling target. He looked at that and said "huh, what is it?" I gave him a few minutes to think about it but he came up with nothing so I reminded him where I got it (gun show) and then he figured out it was a target but didn't have a clue how to use it. When I showed him the vid he cracked up laughing. He loves it! YAY. He'll be back later today so I probably won't be around til tomorrow.

I love the electric eraser he got me among a bunch of other things. It looks like the POS that I bought but this one doesn't wobble. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a sharp enough point on it to do animal hair but I may just need to practice with that. It will be great for erasing large areas and it erases charcoal/graphite without leaving hardly anything behind. He also got me a 30 pak of erasers for it and it came with 10 so I should be good for at least a week.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

 

[3mg Meniere]

I usually force myself to get out and about once a day. Today the temp did not get above 8 deg, tomorrow is predicted at 22, Monday the high predicted is -8, Tuesday is -3. I went to the lumberyard and got a big sheet of pink foam insulation, cut it to size and shoved it into my window casings. Artificial light is better than a drafty home.

 

[SandySu]

Hey Voltville,
BF made it here safe and sound around 8pm. He was miserable, exhausted from the 4 day train ride and dirty. He said he smelled like a barn and wouldn't kiss me. I made him and he didn't smell bad. He was just uncomfortable going 4 days without a shower. He was hungry and tired and wanted to get home but I had to show him his tumbling target. He looked at that and said "huh, what is it?" I gave him a few minutes to think about it but he came up with nothing so I reminded him where I got it (gun show) and then he figured out it was a target but didn't have a clue how to use it. When I showed him the vid he cracked up laughing. He loves it! YAY. He'll be back later today so I probably won't be around til tomorrow.

I love the electric eraser he got me among a bunch of other things. It looks like the POS that I bought but this one doesn't wobble. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a sharp enough point on it to do animal hair but I may just need to practice with that. It will be great for erasing large areas and it erases charcoal/graphite without leaving hardly anything behind. He also got me a 30 pak of erasers for it and it came with 10 so I should be good for at least a week.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

I'm glad BF got home safe & sound. And I'm also glad he got you a good electric eraser. One way I saw on a YouTube video of getting a sharp point is to hole the eraser at an angle against that sandpaper paddle and run it, revolving it slowly and evenly. I'll look for the video. I forget now which one it was.

I'm also glad BF liked his target once he knew what it was. It looked like such a neat idea in that video. When he tries it out, you'll have to tell me if it works as well as it looked like it did.

I got eraser pencils from Amazon and tried one on a small section of Gabe's nose the other night, and it worked well. It came with a point, so we'll see how well I can sharpen it when the time comes. I think when it comes to drawing white lines, I'll just use my white pastel pencil, but you never know. I might try the eraser pencil once I get more used to it. This is not an electric eraser, just a wooden pencil that instead of lead has an eraser inside.

 

[SandySu]

I tutored today.

First, the boy. We are continuing to discuss conjoined twins. (Thanks, Jerry, for the PC reminder.) The boy wasn't even aware that there could be twins, much less ones linked together by their body. He's fascinated by this -- and I don't blame him. I always was and still am, too. I had him read a bit of difficult stuff about conjoined twins in the last century, who were famous as sideshow attractions. But I told him there were a set of contemporary girls who seemed interesting that I'd print out something about and show him next time. In my search, I found this video, which I thought was very well done. I was really impressed by how they spoke in unison so often and seemed mentally linked, even though they are definitely 2 separate people. Of course, some of this comes from living closely together. How many of us with longtime spouses can almost read their mind? How many of us can finish their sentences? But still, I've heard of a psychic link twins may have that other siblings may not. I wonder if any hard science has looked into that. I'll have to look that up next. Meanwhile, here's a video I just watched that I wish I could share with the boy. Abigail & Brittany Hensel - The Twins Who Share a Body - YouTube

This brought up lots of questions in my mind, like one they mentioned: marriage. And reproduction. And what about a job? Do you hire them as 2 people or one?

Meanwhile, the boy has an assignment from school. This is the story from Papua New Guinea about how an old lady in the village was the sole possessor of fire. Whenever the villagers wanted to cook something, they had to go ask her for a spark of fire. So 2 boys decided to spy on her and see where she kept the fire, which was in a big iron pot with a lid. When the old woman left her hut, the boys wanted to steal the fire, and they opened the pot and it was the moon, which floated up to the roof. The boys, in hot pursuit, reached the roof, but the moon had floated to a nearby palm tree. So one of the boys climbed the tree and grabbed at the moon. But the moon was slippery and escaped him to float up to the sky. The boy had dirty hands, and his fingerprints left the dark spots we see on the moon.

The assignment is to tell this story in class, using your own words. At first, the boy had tried to memorize the story and had the first sentence or 2, but then lost the thread. I had to redirect him to not thinking word-for-word but to remember the story and tell it in his own words. He had already made a prompt for himself with pictures telling the story in little boxes. I told him that they do this in advertising to plot the course of a short story, and it's called a story board. So he told the story using his story board, then I asked him to retell it without. He did, and I think he's got it. That was a lot easier than I anticipated. This assignment is for the end of February, and that seems a long time away, but he said the authors of this story are coming to class to show hand signs to illustrate the story.

He asked where Papua New Guinea is, and I had only a vague idea that it was somewhere in the Pacific, one of those islands, so I said I'd look it up and bring him some maps. I did that earlier this evening.

The little girl was given a choice of The Child's Garden of Verses or a book she chose. She really didn't want the poems, so she chose a book that was sort of hard for her, but we got through it. It was a sort of fun story of how the things (like a dinosaur) escaped from the pages of a book and started running around the library at storytelling hour. Then they liberated a clown to catch the dinosaur, but he wasn't fast enough, so he requested a book about aircraft so he could get a helicopter to chase down the dinosaur. At the end, the Gingerbread Man was out of the book saying, "Run, run as fast as you can. I'm the Gingerbread Man."

I got a list of the words the girl didn't know, and we went over them so she had an idea of recognizing them, pronouncing them, and what they mean.

Time to go. It was snowing. I had gone early so as to maybe beat the snow home, but I went up the hill to BJ's, where the gas is cheapest, to fill up, and then shopped there. Then I came home and had dinner, and now, this recap of the 2nd half of my day.

 

[SandySu]

Time to say good night. Did I show you this photo? I must have some time ago. But here it is: sunset on the local gof course, which is a great place to walk in winter. I even have seen people cross-country skiiing there. And once, there was a girl with snowshoes she had gotten for
Christmas and was trying out.

 

[tmcase]

I'm glad BF got home safe & sound. And I'm also glad he got you a good electric eraser. One way I saw on a YouTube video of getting a sharp point is to hole the eraser at an angle against that sandpaper paddle and run it, revolving it slowly and evenly. I'll look for the video. I forget now which one it was.

I'm also glad BF liked his target once he knew what it was. It looked like such a neat idea in that video. When he tries it out, you'll have to tell me if it works as well as it looked like it did.

I got eraser pencils from Amazon and tried one on a small section of Gabe's nose the other night, and it worked well. It came with a point, so we'll see how well I can sharpen it when the time comes. I think when it comes to drawing white lines, I'll just use my white pastel pencil, but you never know. I might try the eraser pencil once I get more used to it. This is not an electric eraser, just a wooden pencil that instead of lead has an eraser inside.

Thanks Sandy. BF was really glad to be home. I think I saw the same vid that you saw of sharpening the electric eraser. I must be doing something wrong. The erase doesn't hold a point very long so I think they may be too soft. I'll keep playing with it.

Eraser pencils. Never heard of that but I use the click erasers and really like those. What is an electric pencil?

 

[tmcase]

I still haven't picked out a pic to draw yet but haven't really had much time to look around. I think I'll go with something a little easier than what you guys posted for now but those are on my bucket list.

 

[tmcase]

I have an orange charcoal pencil I could do the tree in. Would that look stupid in a B&W drawing?

Did everybody miss this question or was it too stupid an idea that nobody wanted to say?

This was regarding the snowing river pic.

 

[SandySu]

Thanks Sandy. BF was really glad to be home. I think I saw the same vid that you saw of sharpening the electric eraser. I must be doing something wrong. The erase doesn't hold a point very long so I think they may be too soft. I'll keep playing with it.

Eraser pencils. Never heard of that but I use the click erasers and really like those. What is an electric pencil?

I didn't say electric pencil. I got eraser pencils. See Amazon.com: Faber-Castell Perfection Eraser Pencils pack of 2: Office Products

 

[SandySu]

Did everybody miss this question or was it too stupid an idea that nobody wanted to say?

This was regarding the snowing river pic.

I didn't think it'd work, but you never know till you try and see. Why did you get the orange charcoal pencil? Did you have something in mind?

 

[tmcase]

I didn't say electric pencil. I got eraser pencils. See Amazon.com: Faber-Castell Perfection Eraser Pencils pack of 2: Office Products

Oops, my bad. I misread.

 

[tmcase]

I didn't think it'd work, but you never know till you try and see. Why did you get the orange charcoal pencil? Did you have something in mind?

I got a set of tinted color charcoal pencils to try but haven't tried them yet. They are nature colors but there is no green in the set and I thought there was so I'm kinda bummed about that but I can get one locally. I was thinking about doing graphite and color together but I'm not sure how that will work.

 

[tmcase]

I didn't say electric pencil. I got eraser pencils. See Amazon.com: Faber-Castell Perfection Eraser Pencils pack of 2: Office Products

Those might work out better for doing animal fur than my electric.

 

[SandySu]

Those might work out better for doing animal fur than my electric.

If you want me to, I can use my charcoal pencil to make a sort of solid background and draw lines with the eraser pencil and photograph it and show you. Would that help you decide if they were worth buying? I got the eraser pencils to erase small areas. They work well at that. You have to rub back & forth to get all of it erased, so maybe one stroke wouldn't make a solid white line.

 

[tmcase]

If you want me to, I can use my charcoal pencil to make a sort of solid background and draw lines with the eraser pencil and photograph it and show you. Would that help you decide if they were worth buying? I got the eraser pencils to erase small areas. They work well at that. You have to rub back & forth to get all of it erased, so maybe one stroke wouldn't make a solid white line.

Yes, that would help a lot. Thanks.

 

[SandySu]

OK, I did it, but I'll wait till tomorrow morning for light to take a picture. You have to press fairly hard or go over your line multiple times to get white. One light swipe doesn't even show up. The lines are thus fairly thick -- thicker than what you could get with a pencil. I think I'll stick to using them as erasers and use a white pencil for white lines. They might be good for highlights, though.

 

[tmcase]

OK, I did it, but I'll wait till tomorrow morning for light to take a picture. You have to press fairly hard or go over your line multiple times to get white. One light swipe doesn't even show up. The lines are thus fairly thick -- thicker than what you could get with a pencil. I think I'll stick to using them as erasers and use a white pencil for white lines. They might be good for highlights, though.

Dang. Having to go over the same spot over and over roughens up the paper so you can't get a nice smooth texture and having to do that on animal fur would take forever. I have a couple of white charcoal pencils but I don't get white when I use them over charcoal or graphite, I just get gray. I bought some white blackboard chalk but it looks gray over graphite. It looks white over real dark charcoal but I've been using graphite more than charcoal lately. <sigh>

 

[JerryRM]

Get ready for part 2 of the Chit Chat thread. It's already started happening.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...megathreads-restarting-15k-posts-gotonew.html

 

[SandySu]

Dang. Having to go over the same spot over and over roughens up the paper so you can't get a nice smooth texture and having to do that on animal fur would take forever. I have a couple of white charcoal pencils but I don't get white when I use them over charcoal or graphite, I just get gray. I bought some white blackboard chalk but it looks gray over graphite. It looks white over real dark charcoal but I've been using graphite more than charcoal lately. <sigh>

What if you put in the white first, then colored over it, then smudged? That works for me with pastels. I do white horse whiskers that extend out into the background like that.

 

[SandySu]

Get ready for part 2 of the Chit Chat thread. It's already started happening.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...megathreads-restarting-15k-posts-gotonew.html

That already happened to us once, so I guess when it does again, it'll be part 3. Has anyone told Imagine about this? I think she needs to be involved.