expertvillage asked:

Learn how to choose paper for pencil sketching and line drawing for beginners in this free video art lesson. …

EDDIE

Peyton Hines asked:


If you’ve ever felt that you aren’t quite experienced enough to have your own lush garden, remember, as the saying goes, practice really does make perfect, and gardening is certainly no different. If growing your own vegetables and plants is something that interests you but you’ve always been afraid to try, you’ll want to start out right with the following simple tips for beginner gardening.
A novice gardener is like a kid with a box of eight crayons. You can still draw a lot of things with eight crayons but marigolds end up the same color as sunflowers and forget about coloring a winter sunset. Although it may be tempting to plant many different types of plants and vegetables, an important hint to remember about beginner gardening is to start out with a smaller, more manageable garden at first. Many people make this common mistake, enthused about their very first garden they end up planting more than they can handle, and then aren’t able to tend to it properly. As skills and confidence grow, gradually increase the garden’s size to fit your time and energy commitments. However, one variation that has caught on with even the most novice gardener is referred to as “minigardening”. It involves growing plants in containers, utilizing either a prepared mixture of a soil substitute and fertilizer, or aggregate culture.

While tending to your own garden is a lot of work, the rewards are plentiful. Whether it’s a new adventure in beginner gardening, or the experienced gardener who has grown their own vegetables before, gardening is supposed to be a fun, relaxing task, rather than a dreaded chore that is avoided. What is interesting to me (as a novice gardener) is that what is produced in Spring (especially flowers and flowering shrubs and trees) are the results of planning and preparation that was completed in the Fall and Winter. You can’t plant tulips or a dogwood tree in March and expect them to flower this Spring.

Another helpful hint for beginner gardening is to sow early on in the planting season. If you are growing vegetables rather than flowers, remember to only plant as much as you and your family will need to avoid wasting any of your efforts. Once your gardening skills improve, you may even want to consider growing vegetables for a profit, if of course you have the interest and the time required to begin such a venture.

Yet another common mistake made by beginner gardening enthusiasts is not learning the basics about the plants and vegetables they put into their garden. It’s a smart idea to do plenty of research on the various growing requirements of the individual vegetables you’ll be planting. Not all plants and veggies are equal, as some will need more care and maintenance than others. When starting out, stick with the easiest plants to grow, adding more complex varieties as your gardening experience grows along with your crops.

Vegetables that flourish and grow during the warm, summer months, such as squash, and different varieties of peppers and tomatoes, may be purchased as young plants from nurseries rather than starting from seeds. This way the plants are already started to ensure the best growth until you’re more confident in your gardening skills. These types of vegetables should always be planted after the danger of the last frost is over, usually late in the month of May, or early in June. Late August is yet another prime time for planting before autumn arrives.



EVAN

ginfo gten asked:


Affiliate marketing is a cottage industry that has grown very quickly in the last couple years, without many people knowing much about it. It is a true home business opportunity, and today, affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet and accounts for a large portion of the Internet Market.

Affiliate networks and affiliate programs are increasingly used by merchants for affiliate marketing and product / website promotion.

There are two ways of looking at affiliate marketing.

1. You have a product and want to sell it through your own affiliate program.

2. You do not have a product and you want to promote someone else’s product.

Since the basic fundamentals of Affiliate Marketing are the same in both cases, in the following sections of this article just consider your self as the Merchant for Item 1 and the Affiliate for Item 2.

The Affiliate programs, also called referral or reseller programs, are a type of marketing strategy.

It is the act of promoting your product or service through independent sales people, referred to as partners or affiliates. They will get a percentage of the sales value of the product when a sale is made. It also works in reverse by having you, as an Affiliate, do the marketing for the Merchant. The commission percentages vary from 25% to 75%, depending on the product and the Merchant. For more details visit to www.ppc-profit-marketer.com .Learning how to work the Affiliate Marketing system is extremely easy. It is the simplest business model to make money, and in fact, research shows that it is the most cost-effective way to generate online sales.

It is often said that Affiliate Marketing is a great field because the costs involved are so low.

Affiliate Marketing is a brilliant way to begin earning on the Internet for those of us who haven’t as yet got our own products. The draw of affiliate marketing is that it is on a “pay per performance” basis. It is a very competitive business, but it is also one of the easiest ways to make money online.

As a beginner, joining other Merchants’ affiliate programs is the easiest way to start a business on the Internet, and it is usually free. If there is a fee to join a program, be careful and do a lot more research on the program itself, as you may find it is something totally different from what you are expecting.

If you decide that affiliate marketing is your game, or you intend it to be, you must make email marketing your main promotional method. This requires the use of autoresponders for maximum return on minimal effort. To be wholly successful in Affiliate Marketing, it is necessary to have a healthy, responsive opt-in list which goes with the autoresponder. For the beginner this is the headache. Generating a responsive opt-in list does take time, but it is well worth the effort of cultivating the list so that when you recommend, they will buy.

Remember that affiliate marketing is a partnership, so make sure your partner is able to support you as you help him promote his products and services, or vice versa. Normally the Merchant will provide a wide range of promotional tools for you to use.

You can earn money from your website promoting the affiliate programs of many manufacturers and on-line suppliers. Making money by this method isn’t hard work, but it’s not point and click easy either.

Affiliate programs give everybody a chance to make a profit through the internet – what is termed a WIN – WIN situation.

Change is constant in online advertising and affiliate marketing is no exception. Email advertising is probably the most often used affiliate marketing tool. There is also search engine optimization, paid search engine advertising, classified ads, offline advertising, and many other methods.

Direct promotion via email has boomed over recent years, but has brought with it mountains of spam. This is an element that you will need to avoid as your email being read by the intended recipient is the basis of your getting sales. To know more logon to www.boost-website-traffic.com .It is reported that the most common Internet-based advertising is now “Pay per Click” (PPC). It has always been thought of as an expensive method of advertising, but if you follow strict controls on your advertising campaigns, they can provide large rewards. Start small and keep a strict watch on it if you go this way.

Unlike traditional advertising, everything can be tracked back as all is transparent right down to the last penny, and it is very simple to keep track on costs and your return on investment.

If you are looking for a way to promote your home business, affiliate marketing can help. Creating multiple streams of income is an important factor when considering any type of business, and Affiliate Marketing could well be one of those streams. In fact, research shows that affiliate marketing is the most cost-effective way to generate online sales.

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http://www.clickmagnet-secrets.com



AARON

Ralph Serpe asked:


Learning any new form of art is always a challenge, and as a beginner, I am certain you have many questions about drawing. We all need a helping hand when just starting out, so I put together this list of handy tips to help you on your way to becoming a better artist.. I hope you enjoy!

1 – If at all possible, always draw from life and not photographs.

2 – When drawing, less is sometimes better. Do not attempt to draw every line and detail that you see or you will give your viewer too much information to absorb.

3 – Do not try and get all of the information in your drawing completed at one sitting. Drawing is a process. Layout the general idea of your drawing and then slowly add in your details.

4 – Do not be overly judgmental about your drawing before it is completed. This may cause you to become discouraged and give up.

5 – Do not take on subjects that are too complicated at first. This will certainly cause you to become discouraged if the drawing isn’t as good as you expected it to be. Start with simple subjects that you know you can complete and then progress to more complicated ones.

6 – Forget everything you already know about a particular subject before you start drawing it. Draw what you see in front of you and not what you know already about that subject.

7 – Make sure you have excellent lighting. Nothing is more frustrating to an artist than poor lighting. If you can’t see you can’t draw. If you do not have a well lit room with natural sunlight to work in, then check your local art supply store or search online for full spectrum lighting products that mimic natural sunlight.

8 – Get yourself a pad of newsprint paper. Its very cheap and great for practice and doing preliminary sketches.

9 – Keep your pencils sharp. There are drawing techniques that require a blunt pencil point , but for the most part, you should keep your pencil points sharpened.

10 – Vary the weight of your lines. Use a variety of different lines in your drawing by pressing harder or by lifting your pencil. This may seem like an obvious thing, but when an artist becomes deeply focused in a drawing, they can sometimes forget to use this simple technique.

11- Keep a sketchbook with you wherever you go. Whenever you have a free moment, practice your drawing. It doesn’t matter if the subject is a light post, an insect or a garbage pail. The more often you draw, the more observant you will become.

12 – Do not over use smudging and blending techniques to achieve values in your drawings.

13 – Never throw out any of your drawings. Keep a neat portfolio of everything you draw. This is an excellent way to see your progress over time.

14 – Avoid looking at your drawing too often. Make sure you are constantly focusing on the subject and only glancing at your drawing. By doing so, you won’t constantly judge your drawing, or think something is wrong or out of place. Focus on the subject and draw what you see.

15 – How to hold your drawing instrument – Hold your pencil in a way that is most comfortable for you. Some hold the pencil just as you would hold a pen or pencil if you were writing. Others hold a pencil with the pencil between the thumb and index finger, with the rest of the pencil resting under the palm of your hand. Whichever method you use for holding your pencil, make certain that you do not hold the pencil too tightly.

16 – Practice the contour drawing technique – This very basic technique is simply drawing the outline of your subject without any shading to indicate form.

17 – Practice the hatching technique – This drawing technique uses a series of parallel lines drawn close together, in the same direction, which gives the appearance of value.

18 – Practice tonal or value drawing – In this approach to drawing we are indicating the various changes of light and shade in our picture without the use of strong edges and lines.

19 – Practice the blind contour drawing technique – Similar to contour drawing, only you do not look at the paper. The point of this exercise is to force you to better observe what it is you are drawing. You should have no concern over the outcome of your drawing so it is important not to peek.

20 – Practice the upside down drawing technique – Drawing upside down is a wonderful exercise to awaken the right side of your brain. When you turn an image upside down, you are making it somewhat abstract and unrecognizable. This forces you to draw what you see as opposed to relying on your memory to draw something.



DOMINICK

Ann Marier asked:


All raga must be entirely put aside. We must separate ourselves from it. We must acquire the opposite condition, where every passion is stilled, where no attraction for the objects of desire remains, where all the bonds that unite the man to surrounding objects are broken. “When the bonds of the heart are broken, then the man becomes immortal.”

How shall this dispassion be brought about? There is only one right way of doing it. By slowly and gradually drawing ourselves away from outer objects through the more potent attraction of the Self.

The Self is ever attracted to the Self. That attraction alone can turn these vehicles away from the alluring and repulsive objects that surround them; free from all raga, no more establishing relations with objects, the separated Self finds himself liberated and free, and union with the one Self becomes the sole object of desire.

But not instantly, by one supreme effort, by one endeavour, can this great quality of dispassion become the characteristic of the man bent on Yoga. He must practice dispassion constantly and steadfastly.

That is implied in the word joined with dispassion, abhyasa or practice. The practice must be constant, continual and unbroken. “Practice” does not mean only meditation, though this is the sense in which the word is generally used; it means the deliberate, unbroken carrying out of dispassion in the very midst of the objects that attract.

In order that you may acquire dispassion, you must practice it in the everyday things of life. I have said that many confine abhyasa to meditation.

That is why so few people attain to Yoga. Another error is to wait for some big opportunity. People prepare themselves for some tremendous sacrifice and forget the little things of everyday life, in which the mind is knitted to objects by a myriad tiny threads.

These things, by their pettiness, fail to attract attention, and in waiting for the large thing, which does not come, people lose the daily practice of dispassiontowards the little things that are around them.

By curbing desire at every moment, we become indifferent to all the objects that surround us. Then, when the great opportunity comes, we seize it while scarce aware that it is upon us.

Every day, all day long, practice–that is what is demanded from the aspirant to Yoga, for only on that line can success come; and it is the wearisomeness of this strenuous, continued endeavour that tires out the majority of aspirants.



ARTHUR

expertvillage asked:

Learn how to choose a pencil for sketching and line drawing for beginners in this free video art lesson. …

JESSE

Carmella asked:


I want to draw Japanese manga so I was wondering where there are lessons for beginners here in the Philippines.

FLOYD

hujgyt asked:

eye drawing for beginners …

VANCE

Andri Irawan asked:


Beginner Chinese Calligraphy, The Han Dynasty in 100 A.D. is the first origin of Chinese characters. The Chinese dictionary completed at that time included around 9,353 characters. The next version of the Chinese dictionary came out of Qing Dynasty and was called the “Kangxi” dictionary. The 42 booklets contained over 46,964 characters, which most are not even used today. There are variants on the characters, revised and refined in the current simplified edition of the Chinese language. This edition was put out by the People’s  Republic of China in 1956. This book  narrowed the characters down to about 6,500. This is considered a simplified form and is the most common form used today, although some remain committed to using the old traditional ways.

Chinese characters have been defined as complicated yet beautiful in their meaning.  They are complex in relation to other writing languages. Romanization is used in terms of relation or simple visual information, however the meaning of the character remains mysterious as the art styles behind it. Some Chinese characters mimic similar tones of other characters, yet have different meanings. Some characters written with just an added dot or stroke, turn into something completely different.

Of Chinese history, the crowning achievement to their culture, is the Chinese characters. They are an abstract art form displaying incredible depth of meaning in just a few brushstrokes. This thick symbolism has made it’s way into mainstream art from centuries gone and desirable still today. Words like love, faith, endure, tranquility, written in a one character form creates a personalization amongst the observer admiring it.  Many of these characters live on walls in homes to communicate a feeling.  Many masters have created their own unique style and now exists over 120 different styles of written Chinese calligraphy.

Learning to draw these characters requires patience, proper tools, clear concise instructions and of course, lots of practice. Acquiring this skilled art form can be hours of entertainment and enjoyment because it is so unfolding in a multi conceptual way.  You will learn the proper directions and different styles (one or two you may adopt as your own), and you will also learn each character’s simple, yet intense meaning. More than likely, you will choose a few complimentary to your own personality and self-expression. Rich information and cultural history is born from learning to write Chinese characters. The ability to dive into a whole new world is invigorating and creating the beautiful work is self actualization process all on it’s own.

Whether you embark on learning to write one character well to display as art on your wall, or you continue with the craft to put words together, even learning to read Chinese, it is rewarding.  The more you unravel the mystery living inside each of these characters, it seems to create added curiosity and a desire to keep going.

The ancient art of Chinese characters are popularized in cultures other than Chinese. The styles and forms of characters seen everywhere, are now a highly demanded art to learn.



SHAWN