New Medium!

I've recieved a set of water-soluble oil paints as a gift, and accordingly

there's gonna be some changes around here


In practise that means that I'm going to be experimenting with the new textures for a while, and there may be some new, weird stuff in the gallery of www.hbartgallery.com.

As ever, work continues to mean that if I have anything other than painting to do of an evening, then unfortunately painting must go.  While I'm looking forward to having money, I've actually yet to be paid either, so it appears that I have fallen into the gap of the old axiom '' you can have time or money but not both'', as I have neither. 

On Cynicism, Credulity, Scepticism and Self-Examination

I have been reading a little earlier about a spectrum of scepticism, ranging from an uncritical, unchallenging belief in authority (credulism) to an all-doubting, nothing-believing nihilistic rejection of all trust in anything (cynicism). I have been doing so in this blog post in Almost Diamonds, a blog about scepticism and various other things. I call myself a sceptic, but I am forced by intellectual honesty to ask myself: Am I really?
That post, which contains some interesting links (this one was my favourite, because of the video), made me think about where I might fall on this topic, analysed and laid bare for your interest.

Atheists around the world indirectly donate to troops

Earlier this week I helped donate a care package to American troops serving in the middle east. It wasn't hard, and it was free, but I'll bet the people who received them didn't give a fuck that I and others didn't actually spend any money. I think they're glad to know that someone cares enough to spend thirty seconds typing a brief message into a box (seems somewhat sad that it's possible to imagine that thirty seconds of caring would be enough to brighten someone's day). I just regret to hell that I didn't tell more people about it. If anyone had asked me why I would want anything to be donated to soldiers, I would say the following:

Soldiers are people, in stressful positions, and people in stressful positions need to know that someone gives a fuck. Simple as that. I don't know much about war, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the war there. I've never personally seen someone be killed, or have personally killed anyone. I've never endured great deprivation, or mortal terror. But I am willing to bet that these things add up rapidly to feeling alienated and weird. Imagine you knew something, had experienced something, so powerful - almost defining - and no-one could understand? You could tell people and they would hear your words but they just wouldn't get it? And would it not be a relief for someone to say: 'hey man, I know you're going through some shit that I don't get, but I'm sympathetic, and here's a token of that'

How it worked was like this: A company (Revision Military) and a charity (Any Soldier) that started it made up a number of care package boxes with magazines, some beef jerky, and some Sawfly military goggles that the company make (apparently they are a desirable item). They then invited people to put a message on them to send to the soldiers out there. Atheist-in-the-military Justin Griffiths made this post on his blog Rock Beyond Belief to let his readers know there was something tangible to do.

We atheists apparently did a lot of this.

I was a small part of something, and it felt good. I'll be looking for bigger parts in bigger things in the future.

Any suggestions?

Belated snow pictures and open commissions

Hi readers!

It's been a few days since my last post but, but now I rectify the situation! I have recovered my camera in just under a week, and am able to now present to you, dear readers, the snow day that was left to us in the West of Scotland after the Hurricane Bawbag; taken at the remarkable Colzium Estate and featuring Cala the dog.

Furthermore, upon completion of my latest commission, I am once again free to take them! This last one was a bit of a slog, and a steep learning curve, but after at least five separate attempts at it, I have done it to my own, and the commissioner's, satisfaction. If you are interested in commissioning your own original artwork from me, then please, by all means visit my website www.hbartgallery.com or email me at hbartgallery AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk. (unusual presentation of this in order to prevent spam.)

Part of the profits of my work are donated to the charity Cala's Biscuits Fund

Pictures of snow below the fold

Sincere Apologies

To anyone who actually cared to see some pictures of snowy Scotland, I apologize. I cannot provide them. I have left my camera with the pictures in my girlfriend's house.

As a token of my profound and abject sadness, please accept these two amusing videos, featuring classy music.

What I love about this one is that it can be boiled down to three things:

The cool, cool music that sounds to me like it could have been taken from an 8-bit Nintendo soundtrack and covered by a bluegrass outfit

The way the dancers really seem to get into the spirit of sheep. How does this even? They really seem to be doing a dance that if you were to anthropomorphise a common field ungulate, they would in fact do.

Lastly the expression on the protagonists' face at the end. that man needs to replace all funny-face actors in Hollywood. Jim Carrey and Jack Black be damned.

I like this one because: Damn but these dudes look like bears!

Barack Obama, Hurricane Bawbag and Comics

Hurricane Bawbag has come and gone, leaving my girlfriend's garden table completely banjaxed, and one of the chairs knocked over, as well as causing a power cut that prevented the digibox from recording Family Guy (OH, THE HUMANITY!!), leaving us here in Scotland at least with  a nice wee blanket of snow; thin enough not to be very inconvenient and just enough to make everything pretty, and judging by the 1) amount of cloud cover (a full 8 Oktas for you meteorology geeks) and 2) length of daylight this time of year I think the snow will persist overnight and maybe even freeze a crust over it. Pictures coming in tomorrow's post.

I have also heard that someone had to explain to The US President what a bawbag was. I liked the mental image that sprang to mind.

OBAMA: What's all this about Hurricane Bawbag, then? Are we gonna need to send aid somewhere?
AIDE: Well, there's been a big storm over in the UK and the people of Scatch-lund are calling it Hurricane Bawbag because it's more annoying for most people than serious.
OBAMA: So what's a baw-bag?
AIDE: Um, a scrotum, sir. 

OBAMA:

 On an entirely different topicThis morning I've been catching up with my favourite webcomics SMBC Comics and Girl Genius. If you like webcomics and you don't yet follow these, then I suggest that you do: they're good. I've explored a lot of different webcomics over the years, and really, these and ChimneySpeak are the only ones that I've cared to keep up with. SMBC is good for three reasons; the satire, the surreality and the simplicity. Zach Wiener references relevant topics and rightly ridicules the ridiculous, all in a simple and convenient format that ttakes only moments to ingest.

 Girl Genius on the other hand, is a grand adventure story told with humour and poking fun at established grand adventure tropes, and a healthy dose of Mad Science.

Chimneyspeak is like an extended penny dreadful, set with humourous sidelong glances at Victorian London. Featuring tarts with hearts, psychotic aristocrats, Quentin-Tarantino-defying blood splatter, lesbian Russian gangsters and good, old-fashioned Scottish Stereotypes (link to character bios here). Basically a hilarious melange of shagging, violence and severely damaged psyches depicted with a cocked-eye, a well-developed sense of irony and possibly a top hat and moustache.

Please accept my hearty exhortations to at least give these a shot. 

Telling the Internet, Part I

My brother and I were chatting tonight and abstracting ideas as we do. I forget how we got onto the topic of 'what would be the best way to upgrade your genitals'. After considering the practicalities of having a plastic surgeon remodel your junk into the shape of either the 'Oseburg' viking ship or a chainsaw, we wondered if it would be possible to have a soundbox implanted to get the 'revving' noise that is so characteristic and impressive.

Would you like to know more?

The Representatives of God and Cartoons

On the way to the train station that I go to to get to work, there is a church nearby. It's a baptist church (which seems invariably to mean that it's a depressing-looking broken-down cowshed) and it's tucked away down a side street. Every now and then there is a little old lady who stands on the confluence of the main street that leads to the station and that side street, and she seems to have taken it into her head to convert passers-by with dreary pamphlets about religion.

Today was one of those days.

Normally when this happens, I ignore her. I don't want what she's selling. But today, she stopped me, and not being in much of a rush, I let her. She seemed flustered, poor thing, that someone actually ceased to perambulate. She tried to save my soul.

She presented me with a badly-thought-out, badly-rehearsed, utterly predictable speech about how modern life was drawing me to Satan, and that that was a bad thing because I would surely burn in hell as a result unless I admitted Christ into my heart on the spot.

I'm not used to being proselytised at, nor preached to: it's rare in Glasgow for someone to harangue you in the street. I didn't have a snappy answer, or anything snarky or clever to say. I listened to her.

Some Links for your amusement.

One for the brain: We Are SkeptiXX, a newly started sceptical blog, inspired by the great tradition of proving that scepticals and rationalists aren't only bearded middle-aged men. Considering the peers of this valuable addition to the Blogoblogz, I personally am expecting great things.


One for the eyes: An artist in mechanical items and found objects makes things that are...so very fascination.

More Darwin:In which, unsatisfied with my first study of Charles Darwin, I try again.

Hullo reader!

My painting time has been consumed by the triplet goblins of Regular Work, Other Things To Do and Minecraft. I am ashamed.

However, I now publish my second study of Charles Darwin - unfortunately I'm having trouble getting the picture manager to work, so I'll have to describe these things a bit.

The Underdrawing - soft pencil on watercolour paper

 Rookie mistake here - I got carried away with drawing him and didn't measure it out properly - now he has an unnecessarily large beard. I always make this mistake out of sheer enthusiasm.

More after the jump!

Turkey, Camels, and Unfailing Politeness

I saw Michael Palin go to Turkey on TV today. Turkey is interested in joining the EU, and that seems like a cool thing to me; for one, Turkey has long been a buffer between the eastern portions of the EU and the Middle East, and the idea that the Middle East might be just a little culturally closer bears some thinking about. For another, it's always nice to find out about the country that might soon be a neighbour. Finally, Turkey is a tobacco producing region, producing, unsurprisingly, Turkish Tobacco. I like a pipe, and I love a cigar. The possibility that a tobacco producing region nearby, and within our easy-international-trading area, seemed like an interesting one. It's far fetched to imagine that tobacco products will grow cheaper, or more varied, or easier to find, but it was an amusing fantasy.

But that wasn't the coolest thing on that program. There were things that I saw that amazed me a great deal. For example, I wouldn't have thought that it would snow in Turkey, which lies between the EU and the Middle East. I would have thought that it would be, almost entirely, a warm place - if not outright hot. But there was Michael Palin, standing proud and cheerful in the snow amid some truly bizarre volcanic geological formations called 'fairy chimneys' in a place called Cappadocia- and yes, you can go and stay in one. They're made by wind and precipitation weathering of soft rock (is soft volcanic rock a common or uncommon thing? I would love for a geogeek to tell me).

Another thing that Michael Palin went to see was an event called the 25th Annual All-Turkey Camel-Wrestling Championship (I may have taken some licence there, but that is about what I saw on a banner).

A hot, coppery sun glares down on a bowl of dusty sand, as a heavy, balding man swaggers into the demarcated arena. His skin is oiled and slick, and he spits the dust from his mouth as he sizes up his opponent. Fuelled by chilli sauce and kebabs, and absolutely hammered, the man takes off his hat and places it ceremonially on the ground to his side. He is the champion. In this arena, he is God. He will not lose. He must not lose. Not to some obstreporous quadruped.

After all... he's got a reputation to maintain.
That didn't really happen. Instead, Micheal Palin sat in a crowd that watched starved, randy camels wrestle each other whilst the locals consumed raki and kebabs. It was rather sad, and smacked a little more than faintly of traditional animal cruelty crudely disguised as a cultural rite. Michael was unflaggingly and immaculately polite, as ever.

If it had been the former version of events, I would be the first to give Turkey the fist-bump that welcomes them into the EU.

Darwin, Rationality and Renaissance

I've been away from keyboard for a few days. I actually felt guilty about neglecting this blog.  In the time I've been able to snatch inbetween doing gainful employment, I've managed to produce a portrait of Charles Darwin.

One of the sites I love to  visit and revisit is Freethought Blogs, and my favourites there, Pharyngula, En Tequila Es Verdad and Blue Collar Atheist (this is not to suggest that these are the only blogs there, or the objectively best, or that the others are somehow unworthy. These are just my favourite three of a large group that I like immensely. I strongly suggest that anyone go to see if there's anything that catches their eye there). I wanted to show them how much I appreciate their words, which entertain and inform me so well and the idea came to me all of a sudden. A long term project was born (and I'm really going to stick to it this time) . It might take me a while, but I'm going to do them each a painting.

I thought I'd start with Charles Darwin. Central to a lot of debate, he's a famous figure in science politics, as the Theory of Evolution that he proposed was received poorly in his own time (and it still seems to have some resistance even today) and is pretty fundamental to basically every biological discipline.

So, taking up some peculiarly dense watercolour paper I had found, I got stuck right in doing some pencils for a study for it. The image is taken from an old photo, rather a famous one I think, and I basically mentally cropped it. I must say that the intense tonal contrasts in his face are extraordinary - Darwin was a craggy-looking fellow. I found it really interesting to work on all his myriad crevices and wrinkles. What a life of thinking and pondering and worrying he had - no wonder! 

I agonized long and hard about whether or not to do it in monochrome, like the old photo was, or whether it should be a colour study. As you can see, this is after the first couple of layers of watercolour, and it is indeed in colour. I thought that since the reference material was in monochrome, it would be an interesting challenge to try to render it in colour. It sure was.

 More pictures of my progress on this one after the fold.