Hilarious words that we could use to describe some of our esteemed leaders

Art – Swan

After the roller coaster ride of my lovely ladies, I was rather tired. Swans are always beautiful – and as my Art class teacher showed me – white is not white. It is never pure white. It is mostly shades of colours. In this case more of a grey tinge. It was a new and fascinating concept to me, and it applies to many other features as wel..

I learnt that I have to examine carefully the colours of my subject. and a simple way is to punch a hole in a white piece of paper and hold that against your subject. This is a much better representation of the real colours (and so simple). I often put a dab of a paint colour that I have mixed up on the paper next to the hole to judge how close I am (that is if I am going for realistic colours).

Thanks to Nichola for such an easy tool that is so powerful!

Bi-Polar Intro.

When first learning about Bipolar, normally there is a string of “symptoms” for the Depressive Downs and one for the Manic Ups. There are on-line questionnaires you can perform a self-assessment on. However, it is my belief that unless you do have bipolar, these questions appear rather bizarre, almost “what on earth??”

Even if this list is understood (in the literal sense), it provides no explanation of what these phrases really are like. If we talk about, lets say, racing thoughts; what does that feel like? What do you do when having these thoughts? How does it manifest to other people? Can it be controlled (as is)? Does it feel good (at that moment)? How does it affect your behaviour? Does it upset or stimulate those around you?

These “symptoms” encompass a range of emotions, actions, non-actions, negative and positive interactions with people (both in your circle, and out). They can be harmful to one’s self and to others – sometimes (not all the time). The severity of these states of mind covers a huge range. For example, on a scale bar of anger emotions, the most extreme actions that can occur are: Actual suicide (anger manifests towards one’s self) and Murder (against another). These are the most drastic actions that we must guard against as much as possible). For myself, luckily I have never actually tried to murder anyone, but I have had multiple suicide attempts (surviving against the odds medically).

I am going to post a few images of the “dry – text book” explanations, and a couple listing famous people who have / had Bipolar.

Here is the standard blurb about Bipolar

The blue shading is “normal” mood swings: the graph is bipolar. Personally, I have been through all stages including the mixed state (which the worst)

Typical theoretical list of (some) symptoms

This is interesting – I certainly never knew that Lithium was used in Roman times!

Mortality Rates: Suicide is the biggest cause of death in Bipol

More modern celebrities include: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mariah Carey, Jeanne Claude Van Damme, Kanye West, Kurt Cobain, Russell Brand, Sinead O’Connor, Amy Winehouse, Mel Gibson, Stephen Fry, Demi Lovato, Vivien Leigh (Gone with the Wind), Carrie Fisher (original star Wars), Frank Sinatra, Jim Carey and Britney Spears.

This is more important than maybe thought. It can send one deeper into depression and maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back.

New Lady (Mongolian)

After the previous grumpy girls, I decided to have another attempt at portraits, and chose this lovely, happy, enchanting lady from Mongolia. I did some research first on facial features and proportions, on skin colours and shadows. This took quite a while, and helped me understand what I was doing a bit better. But I seem to have ended up painting not really sticking to anything I had researched in any detail: more just feeling my way. I spent way too long on it, over worked it, struggled a lot with blending; but I had fun, and she always makes me feel better and brings a wee smile to my face.