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All That He Knew, He Had Learned Alone
Nov. 3rd, 2009 09:14 pmRANT OF THE DAY
Doing tech support makes me want to cry sometimes. I suppose it doesn't help that (1) I have a very low tolerance for bullshit, and (2) I think that (a) people should attempt to *think* things through before calling for tech help (since it's very often a case of sheer laziness rather than genuine inability) or at least make an attempt to do a particular task first before asking, and (b) tech support should NOT have to cover helping the person check their email for grammatical error, or asking for the best way of saying "hi" to acquaintances one is emailing.
NEW LES MIS ART
"Feuilly was a fan-maker, an orphan, who with difficulty earned three francs a day, and who had but one thought, to deliver the world. He had still another desire - to instruct himself, which he also called deliverance. He had taught himself to read and write; all that he knew, he had learned alone. Feuilly was a generous heart. He had an immense embrace. This orphan had adopted the people. Being without a mother, he had meditated upon his mother country. He was not willing that there should be any man upon the earth without a country. He nurtured within himself, with the deep divination of the man of the people, what we now call the idea of nationality. He had learned history expressly that he might base his indignation upon a knowledge of its cause. In this new upper room of utopists particularly interested in France, he represented foreign nations. [...] This poor workingman had made himself a teacher of justice, and she rewarded him by making him grand."
from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (Charles Wilbour translation)
My concept of Feuilly, probably a little younger than in my other pictures of him. Fictitious character or not, I have a deep respect for self-educated people, who pick up skills and knowledge on their own without the benefit of formal instruction, which might explain why Feuilly's the Ami I root for the most.
I can't remember the last time I had so much fun painting something: it felt like a wonderful release of pent-up energy and fulfilled need. And a deep love for the work I created - which is a very rare thing for me, since I'm fully capable of hating a picture just because I messed up some small part. I think I did well by forbidding myself from painting for the past month, allowing myself to build up the craving to paint again. I've learnt my lesson: painting too much in too short a period of time is so energy-consuming an effort, so arduous a journey that it burns me out; I need timeouts like these.
[Strangely enough, while I usually deplore painting backgrounds (just because I do them doesn't mean I have to like them), this was one that I had way too much fun doing, that I wanted to stretch on a little longer, and did not feel the strong urge to be done with as soon as possible so that I could get to the "meat" of the foreground.]
And because I'm sneaky and I love Easter Eggs, here's a close-up of the painting (at 50% zoom), showing some of the details that probably nobody else is going to pick up on:
Doing tech support makes me want to cry sometimes. I suppose it doesn't help that (1) I have a very low tolerance for bullshit, and (2) I think that (a) people should attempt to *think* things through before calling for tech help (since it's very often a case of sheer laziness rather than genuine inability) or at least make an attempt to do a particular task first before asking, and (b) tech support should NOT have to cover helping the person check their email for grammatical error, or asking for the best way of saying "hi" to acquaintances one is emailing.
NEW LES MIS ART
"Feuilly was a fan-maker, an orphan, who with difficulty earned three francs a day, and who had but one thought, to deliver the world. He had still another desire - to instruct himself, which he also called deliverance. He had taught himself to read and write; all that he knew, he had learned alone. Feuilly was a generous heart. He had an immense embrace. This orphan had adopted the people. Being without a mother, he had meditated upon his mother country. He was not willing that there should be any man upon the earth without a country. He nurtured within himself, with the deep divination of the man of the people, what we now call the idea of nationality. He had learned history expressly that he might base his indignation upon a knowledge of its cause. In this new upper room of utopists particularly interested in France, he represented foreign nations. [...] This poor workingman had made himself a teacher of justice, and she rewarded him by making him grand."
from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (Charles Wilbour translation)
My concept of Feuilly, probably a little younger than in my other pictures of him. Fictitious character or not, I have a deep respect for self-educated people, who pick up skills and knowledge on their own without the benefit of formal instruction, which might explain why Feuilly's the Ami I root for the most.
I can't remember the last time I had so much fun painting something: it felt like a wonderful release of pent-up energy and fulfilled need. And a deep love for the work I created - which is a very rare thing for me, since I'm fully capable of hating a picture just because I messed up some small part. I think I did well by forbidding myself from painting for the past month, allowing myself to build up the craving to paint again. I've learnt my lesson: painting too much in too short a period of time is so energy-consuming an effort, so arduous a journey that it burns me out; I need timeouts like these.
[Strangely enough, while I usually deplore painting backgrounds (just because I do them doesn't mean I have to like them), this was one that I had way too much fun doing, that I wanted to stretch on a little longer, and did not feel the strong urge to be done with as soon as possible so that I could get to the "meat" of the foreground.]
And because I'm sneaky and I love Easter Eggs, here's a close-up of the painting (at 50% zoom), showing some of the details that probably nobody else is going to pick up on:
