Calvin the Coolest President is a children’s book written and illustrated by the husband and wife writing team of Austin and Stephanie Petersen. Recently I had the opportunity to interview both authors on my livestream.
Interview with the Petersens
A picture book about the 30th president of the United States, Calvin the Coolest President addresses libertarian issues in simple language that every child can understand.
The above is a high contrast photograph of a portrait that I recently painted of my daughter. Red is the dominant color. Shadows are red. Low areas are red. High contrast is achieved through a vibrant, undiluted bright red.
An earlier stage of the painting with less contrast in lighting
Below is a video that shows the process by which the painting came about.
Using vibrant unmuted colors can be a stylistic choice. This same portrait could have had more muted and natural looking colors by adding a semi-transparent coat of greyish white over the top.
Let me know in the comments if you think the reddish light in this portrait is too harsh.
Are you looking for an easy holiday painting project that can be completed in ten minutes? Consider painting a cardinal on a small square of canvas board.
What you will need?
A canvas board, prepainted light green. (A square four inches by four inches is a good size, but it can vary.
Acrylic paint tubes: titanium white, bright red, blue and yellow.
A small roller brush and a few other brushes for finer detail.
a paper plate to use as a palette
How to Paint the Cardinal
Mix white and blue and use the roller brush to create random patterns of the two colors to create an impression of depth through a blurry background implying shapes out of focus.
Draw the silhouette of the cardinal in bright red paint, undiluted with other colors.
Add red berries hanging in the air.
Mix equal parts of red and blue and half as much yellow to create black. Add the black areas in the cardinal around the eye and also include the eye.
Use some of the black for the branch the cardinal is perched upon and the vines from which the berries grow.
Add white highlights to the branches and white snow on the berries,
Add white and and yellow highlights to the cardinal, refining the texture of its plummage.
Now you are done. Here is how your painting will look.
Some artists are very good at photo realism. They create excellent mockups of real world scenery, taking into account both perspective and proportions. And yet somehow those same artists fail when it comes to creating recognizable portraits. Why is that? Because for facial recognition, proportions do not matter.
But surely if an artist is good enough, he can create a recognizable face just by getting all the details right, including the perspective and the proportions? After all, photographers do. You would think that, but every drawing or painting has to leave some information out in order to recreate a part of our world in a limited number of strokes. Unless you actually focus on the things that are important to facial recognition — individual idiosyncracies of facial features — then you will fail to capture a recognizable face.
Our brain has an area that is dedicated to facial recognition. Software that tries to capture that same function has to rely on complex algorithms that go far beyond geometrical issues of proportions and perspective. People whose facial recognition center is damaged might perfectly describe a person they see and still not be able to recognize the individual. Knowing what you see and recognizing who you see are two different things.
If you are trying to paint a portrait that will be recognizable, don’t obsess over proportions. Try to make the person recognizable first, and worry about proportions later.
Rain or Shine is a Korean show about survivors of a mall collapse that killed 48 people
Rain or Shine as a K-drama
Rain or Shine is a gem of a South Korean show. I rank it right up there with My Mister, and just a little below Mr. Sunshine. In fact, since it has a positive character who is both a loan shark and drug dealer, I might actually rank Rain or Shine above My Mister as a libertarian drama.
Ha Moon-S00 and Lee Gang-Doo
Rain or Shine: The Basic Plot
Years after the collapse of a mall kills 48 people and the architect of the mall commits suicide, the survivors of the collapse come together to rebuild. In the process, hidden memories surface, love blossoms, and emotional conflicts are explored and resolved.
Ha Moon-Soo
Rain or Shine: The Characters
Ha Moon-Soo (Won Jin-A) — A survivor of the mall collapse who builds architectural models for a living.
Lee Gang-Doo (Lee Joon-Ho) — A survivor of the mall collapse who works in construction.
Seo Joo-Won (Lee Ki-Woo) — The son of the architect who designed the mall that collapsed, he is now in charge of designing the new mall. He is the direct supervisor of Ha Moon-Soo.
Jung Yoo-Jin (Kang Han-Na) — Her father was in charge of the building project of the collapsed mall. She and Joo-Won used to be romantically involved. Her brother is in charge of the new building project. Her father is married to Joo-Won’s mother. She herself is an architecturally trained business woman.
Yoon-Ok (Yun Yoo-Sun) — Moon-Soo’s mother, who runs a bath house for women. She is racked with guilt over the death of her younger daughter, Yeon-Soo, in the collapsed mall and has become an alcoholic.
Ha Dong-Chul (Ahn Nae-Sang) — Moon-Soo’s father who runs a noodle shop close to the site of the collapsed mall. He is separated from his wife. He is also the person whose confrontation with the architect caused Joo-Won’s father to commit suicide.
Ha Yeon-Soo (Han Seo-Jin) –Moon-Soo’s little sister who was killed in the mall collapse.
Jung Yoo-Taek (Tae In-Ho) — Yu-Jin’s brother, a very incompetent businessman.
Lee Jae-Young (Kim Hye-Jun) — Gang-Doo’s sister, a doctor.
Who is responsible for the mall collapse? Was it the architect who put together the perfect blue prints? The construction company who tried to cut costs? The construction worker who was caught reselling materials from the mall construction project? Who should be blamed? Who is responsible for a little girl’s death in the collapse? Her older sister who should have been at her side? Her mother, who sent both girls unaccompanied into the mall alone? And what if none of them are responsible? What if life is just cruel? Do you blame the heartless universe or whatever god you believe in?
I explore these issues in greater depth in the video embedded below.
Rain or Shine: Libertarian Aspects
The character of the loan shark/drug dealer with the heart of gold is a very nice touch. This show demonstrates that there is a clear difference between what is immoral and what is illegal. Some of the kindest people sell medicine under the table to people the medical profession refuses to serve. Some of the best bankers are loan sharks, lending money at exorbitant rates to people who otherwise would be turned away.
Like many other shows about art and architecture from South Korea, this drama also features architectural drawings. If you are interested in the art of Rain or Shine, watch the video embedded above.
There are two artists responsible for the main character’s art in the South Korean drama Our Beloved Summer. The first of these is Thibaud Herem. The second is Seungbae Kim.
I am sure we have all had the experience in childhood of trying to paint with watercolor. I remember how much fun it was to try, but the overall result was less than satisfying. The color went everywhere, and even if I thought I was pretty good at drawing what I wanted, I had to admit that my finished watercolor painting looked as if a baby had made it. There were no sharp edges and the water flowed over everything. It was a mess!
In my teens, I took some classes in acrylic painting, and I came to feel that this was my medium. I could control the paint. I could layer it. It dried very fast, and I could paint light layers over dark layers and vice versa. It was versatile.
A few years ago, my daughter gifted me with a creativity set that included markers, colored pencils, crayons and watercolors. It was a nice gift, but I put it aside, convinced that acrylic painting was my only medium, and that anything I tried to do with watercolor would look like a baby painting, all splotches and no form.
But recently I have begun to follow other artists on YouTube who do magical things with watercolor. My own experiments with coffee painting made me see how a water based medium has unexpected bonuses, in the blooming that water creates on the page.
Cleaning out my closet, I rediscovered the creativity set, with its built in water colors. At first, I decided I would use it for flowers. I had this gorgeous photo of the phlox from last summer. Would it be possible to reproduce it with watercolor, however sloppily?
By the time I had gotten around to painting my favorite subject, my daughter, with watercolor, I devised the following method that contrasts neatly with my normal practice with acrylics:
I create the structure for watercolor with a pencil sketch, whereas in acrylics the structure is painted along with the color.
Light areas in watercolor have to be shielded from paint application, whereas in acrylic you can paint light on dark.
Blending of colors can occur on the page, but with watercolor dark always overwhelms light.
In watercolor, accidents need to be embraced, whereas in acrylics they can be fixed.
There is something fun and magical now for me in painting with watercolors. Very little need be done to accomplish much. So when I am taking a hiatus from acrylics, I can play with watercolors and enjoy both the process and the result.
On the Friday night livestream of February 4, 2022, our guest was singer/songwriter Daniel Kelly.
Daniel Kelly
Daniel’s songs cover topics like the defintion of art, slackware, and the controversy concerning Olympics in China. He also sets the words of others to music, such as William Blake’s “The Tyger”. His songs can be short and funny, but he also writes long ballads.
The Contents of the Livestream
If you would like to go directly to one of the songs, the contents are indexed here;
