My Third Painting

So I'm on my quest to become what I would consider a good painter. I don't know that I know what makes a good painter but at the moment I'm thinking for me to consider myself a good painter I would firstly need to produce paintings that I think are as good as any that a professional painter would produce and secondly, my paintings would need to be at a level that people would be prepared to pay for.

Not to give the impression that I'm doing this for money, far from it. I'm doing this because art and being artistic is something that I've been drawn to all my life but never really explored in any depth and also because as a part of some self development I decided that I needed a regular creative outlet.....and above all I enjoy it.

That said, if the day did come where people did want to buy my paintings I'd love to do that to, financial stability is not something my family and I have or have ever had in our lives.

Anyways, after starting a third painting and having it end up in the bin I decided that if I'm to be successful at this I'm going to need to learn how to paint and not just rely on raw talent and practice.

This painting therefore will be the first in what we'll call the "learning to paint" series, that is, I followed a tutorial I downloaded off the net.

Of course it's nowhere near as good as the one in the tutorial though the tutorial guy had more brushes, more colours, was using oils not acrylics and of course that's his thing so I shouldn't be too disappointed. I did learn some things, which is good, and I'm not entirely unhappy with the result, I give it 6/10. Let me know what you think.

My Take on Swearing and Vocabulary

It's often said that those who use profanity are simply displaying their lack of intelligence and poor vocabulary.
Well to them I say "fuck you!".
Swear words are just that, words. I think they certainly have their place in society today and whilst I do believe there are perhaps circumstances where swearing isn't appropriate, such as talking to you grandmother or addressing the Queen I think that if the word fits then use it.

I'd challenge anyone to convey the passion of a statement like "FUCK YOU CUNT!" or "I'M FUCKING PISSED OFF" without swearing, it's just not possible.

And as for those arrogant twats who insist on using ridiculously large and obscure words in a conversation as a means to display higher intelligence and superiority...get a fucking life. The whole purpose of conversation is to convey a message and if you are selectively choosing to utilise words that you think are not likely to be understood by the the recipient of your conversation then it shows that the only message you are trying to convey is your self inflated egotistical superiority over the other and not the actual contents of the message...FUCK OFF!

I would much rather someone use swearing as a means to emphasise the passion they might have for a particular topic then try to use a more selective vocabulary and risk missing the point or understating their true feelings.

The Meaning of Life

What is the meaning of life?
Here's my theory......the meaning of life is to learn stuff!
See, in the beginning, before there was an physical universe, there was a race of beings that had no physical presence at all, they were simply consciousnesses. Perhaps they had evolved from a previously imploded universe. Having no physical environment there was only so much they could do and learn and so each being then created their own universe....enter the big bang and parallel universes.
Once our universe began to take shape the formation of living organisms is simply a natural one.
The non-physical being then divided itself up to inhabit each and every living being from single celled organisms to plants, animals and us. This is what people refer to as a soul...I don't like this term simply because of the religious connotations but it's serves the purpose.
Now...because the whole point of the exercise was to learn, the "soul" then learns and absorbs experiences from it's time in that living organism. Once the organism dies the "soul" then collates and remembers that information, considers if there are more lessons to be learned and if so moves onto another life. After each lifetime the "soul" remembers all that has been learned in all previous lifetimes, hence the phrase " an old soul".
"Souls" also stay together in "Soul" families so the soul of your brother might be your father in the next life or perhaps a best friend, hence the term "soul mates".
Now, because the purpose of the "soul" is to learn it preordains to a certain extent the events that will hapen in that person's life. So for example, if that "soul's" purpose is to experince emense joy then that person would have a very happy life, where as if that "soul's" purpose is to experience extreme poverty then that is the life it will choose.
To take that a step further, if that "soul's" purpose is to experience immense pain then perhaps it will choose a life where it looses a child in traggic circumstance or that "soul's" purpose my be to experience killing someone or to be killed etc.
This explains why you often see families that always seem to be struck with the most traggic of circumstances...perhaps one person dies young of cancer, another might die in a car accident etc etc and yet you find others where no-one in the family every experiences any major illnesses and everyone just lives on to an old age.
Evenually the "soul" comes to a point where it has learnt all it feels it needs to and it is at that point the it "ascends" to remain in a non-physical form.
And so, although this explanation is brief and generalised it's the one that seems to make most sense to me after years of reading and querying and deep thought on the subject.
Whilst I don't conform to any religion I don't doubt that some of this might relate to some religions, I know I have discussed this with a couple of Muslim friends who have said there is some similarity.
Anyways...feel free to comment.

Power your car on water

Converting water to hydrogen and oxygen (or HHO gas) is another current interest of mine. Admittedly my drive to get this project completed is not as strong as I might like so it's been dragging on a bit.
General consensus says that it take more energy to produce hydrogen than it you get from the hydrogen itself so it's a fruitless exercise.
Whilst I'm no scientist this kind of sounds like crap to me. Another myth generated by petroleum companies.
What I do know is that when I installed my first HHO producing cell in my car I notice an increase in power and a slight decrease in fuel consumption.
I'm now into building my fourth HHO cell after some trial and error which should produce about 1.5 to 2 litres of gas pr minute at about 30 amps.
I'm hoping this will translate to about a 20-30% reduction in fuel consumption in my car which is a Toyota Corolla 1.6 litre twin cam.
Time will tell.
I can't take any of the credit for the idea though, people have been doing this for a long time, with some claiming to run their cars completely on hydrogen alone.
Much of my design is taken from a guy I've been following on Youtube.
here's the link if you're interested(he's very thorough in his research and testing)
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=johnaarons
I haven't touched it for a few weeks but once it's complete I'll post some results.

My 2nd Painting

This is my second painting, again acrylic on canvas measuring 100cm x 75cm.

I can't say that I like it as much as the first painting. I like how the sky turned out but I rushed the water a bit.

Also, I think because I painted this from a photo I found of one of the local beaches I can't help but compare it to the photo and pick the differences.

Once again feel free to comment.

My First Painting

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed a creative outlet. So I thought I 'd have a go at painting. Anyways, here's my first attempt. It's acrylic on canvas and measures 96cm x 42cm.

Feel free to comment. It took a couple of days to grow on me but I kind of like it.

As I've never had any lessons or guidance on how to paint I think it's OK. This was completely imaginary scene.

The First Post

Welcome to "Alex On Life And Everything".

If I were to ask myself why I am starting this blog reasons would include because the concept of blogging intrigues me, it's something that I haven't done before. Also, I have a lot of opinions on everything, from trivial through to extreme and perhaps they're wasted if I keep them to myself. Also, I am open to others opinions and along the way someone may offer an alternate view to my own that I might not have considered.

My intention is to post what ever is on my mind that day or at the time and see where it goes. So you're likely to see posts ranging from a display of my latest painting or if I had a good day fishing through to world politics, global warming, religion and conspiracies.

That said, at no time would I ever intend to offend anyone, so if you are offended by any content then I would suggest either accept that I am not trying to offend you or change your way of thinking, or simply don't return to this blog. I make no apologies for the way I think.