Category: Hobbies

Switching to Pencil: Mastering the Art of Drawing with Three and a Half Rules | June 20 2025, 12:53

In the studio, we decided to switch from oil to pencil, which I hadn’t touched for years (and, frankly, never really knew how to use properly). But with practice, I understood just three and a half rules of good drawing.

1. Draw what you see, not what you think you should see if you look at the reference. This is the most difficult part because it involves fighting your own brain, which is convinced it knows what things look like.

2. Judgment of proportions. If something occupies a fifth on the reference, you need to distinguish it from a sixth or a fourth, and of course, see exact halves and thirds clearly. It’s like having a musical ear. If an imaginary line ends at a point on the ear, you need to see this imaginary line. It’s not hard, but requires practice, and it seems you need to practice it all your life. Interestingly, you are initially surprised at how wrong you are about proportions. There are many small optical illusions that one must get used to.

2.5. Angles. A continuation of judging proportions. You need to see the difference between, say, 45 and 40 degrees at least. And see where to turn the wrong line and by how much.

3. Ability to simplify. Any complex shape needs to be simplified in the mind to straight lines and shapes and draw those first, and also to reduce reality to spots of a maximum of a few shades (with white and black at the edges).

That’s all. If you master just these three and a half points, you won’t need anything else for a long time. No knowledge of anatomy, understanding of materials, or laws of perspective (all this is important, but comes later).

Exploring Faust and the Zoologist: The Dual Life of Translator Khodkovsky | June 18 2025, 04:06

I’m listening to the second part of Faust and simultaneously googling translator Holodkovsky. It turns out that translating Faust was something of a hobby for the scholar-zoologist Holodkovsky, spanning 60 years. Holodkovsky has hardly any original writings—only translations, and from the translations, everything else, as they say, is minor details.

That is, Goethe wrote Faust for 60 years, and the entomologist-translator translated it for 40 years and spent another 20 catching bugs, imagine? What a scale of projects.

In fact, apart from being the author of probably the best translation of Faust, Holodkovsky is almost absent in literature. But as a zoologist, he left much more of a mark. True, it’s hard for non-entomologists to read without a smile, but here are his main works: “Male Genitalia of Diptera,” “Atlas of Human Helminths,” “On the Oral Organs of Some Insects Parasitizing Humans,” “Coexistence and Societies of Animals,” and others.

Why Shiba Inu Training Fails: A Waiting Game for Lisa | June 09 2025, 17:11

This is why the Shiba Inu is difficult to train. He’s not in the mood today, waiting for Lisa. And the cat is waiting for Lisa too. Their daughter is finally moving back from campus, already loaded everything into the truck. Yuki is looking out the window. Trying to feed him boiled chicken fails — food is not much of a motivator for him. He last ate about 15 hours ago, so he should be a bit hungry in theory. No, he’s not sick — this behavior has been observed throughout his four years. Waiting.

The Curious Case of Rollerblades vs. Inline Skates: A Brand Name’s Journey to Common Use | June 02 2025, 18:14

I step into Starbucks, and there’s a sign in the parking lot. Why rollerblades? After all, blade means ‘blade’? If it came down to it, rollerblades should be something like a circular saw. Started figuring it out. Turns out, roller skates were originally called inline skates, but then the commercial company Rollerblade appeared and eventually became a generic trademark, like Pampers, Xerox, marker pen, Thermos, Play-Doh, or escalator.

But actually, the term Inline Skates exists, and it means any skates, and the company Rollerblade still exists. Interesting, did it influence the fact that its name was on the sign?

And what about the Russian name “коньки”? Is it a diminutive of “horse”? Yes 🙂 According to one version, like little horses, they carry you across the ice: ancient skates were decorated with a horse’s head at the front. According to another version, the name comes from the fact that the first runners were usually made from animal bones, most often horses.

It seems you speak in Russian, and only when you contemplate do you realize that ‘horse’ and ‘skates’ are related words.