Why Do Artists Use Different Pencils?

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From bold strokes to sketches with fine details, the range of art pencil tools can give you the versatility you require to make eye-catching and unique artworks. This explains why there are different options to begin with, and this includes the graphite range too. 

When you first browse through the choices available at the art stores and retailers, you come across the pencil hardness scales going from H(hard) to B(black/soft) in terms of the core or lead. The H range is perfect for those technical drawings with detailed objects, whereas the B range is the go-to for tonal drawings with varying shades of light and dark to accentuate depth and form. 

In terms of marks, the H is great for lighter marks, and the B range if great for darker marks. In other words, if you want to take your art to the next level, it’s best to consider buying art pencil of each scale to give you the chance to work with different techniques and create different effects. The scale starts with HB, balanced hardness and softness in the centre, ranging from 2H, 3H, 4H up to 6H on the left, and 2B, 3B, 4B up to 12B on the right. 

The harder the lead or the higher the H number, the lighter the lines, and the softer the lead or the higher the B number, the darker the lines though they’re  not as dark as those of charcoal pencils. Artists usually start with the H range for general sketching and outlines because it makes it easier to erase. This is especially true if afterwards you’d be working with coloured artists’ pencils like you would for colouring books. These are nothing other than pencils with pigments and binder for exceptional blending capabilities and adding vibrant colours. 

The B range adds darker tones and helps define areas and details. Some find it easier to work with mechanical art pencils which also come in different hardness and softness scales because of the added control and precision, and the use of the lead to the fullest – not just what fits in the sharpener. The choice you end up making is entirely up to you – each option is equally fine and beneficial. 

Popular Drawing Techniques

Now that you know the basics of the art pencil options available, let’s talk about some of the basic techniques you can experiment with. 

Hatching and Cross-Hatching

When you add lines next to each other, whether it’s horizontally, vertically or diagonally, you create hatching. When you use lines that intersect, that’s when you use cross-hatching. Both options are techniques that are helpful with adding textures, more so when you add darker lines. This is essential for adding depth to your drawings.

Layering

Want to experiment with lighter and darker pencil lines? This is what’s known as the layering technique. Starting off with the H scale pencils then moving on to using the B scale ones helps add more dimension to the drawings. 

Blending

When working on something more intricate like a portrait or a landscape, blending can be of immense help with adding smoothness between shades. While it’s nice to use a tool like a blending stump for the task, it’s okay if you also use your fingers as a beginner. Once you get more serious with the art, you can invest in cool tools like this one.

Feathering

When you use short and small pencil strokes to create smooth transitions and realistic textures, you can apply pencils of different softness levels with varying pressures then rub the area with a piece of paper for that soft and well-blended feather effect. 

Stippling

If you don’t mind using some of your patience skills to come up with a beautiful piece of artwork, be sure to try out some stippling which is basically the application of small dots with varying pressures using pencils of different hardness and softness levels. Keep in mind the harder pencil leads create lighter and thinner dots, whereas the softer pencil leads create darker and bolder dots. Adding dots closer to each other creates a darker area. 

Negative Space Drawing

Want to find a way to make your drawings’ subjects stand out without having to add in the extra work on them? Why not experiment with negative space drawing? This is a technique that lets you focus on the surroundings instead by trying out some shading and toning, which in turn helps make the subject pop. 

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However, accidents can happen at any time! The unfortunate scenario of you having an accident or suffering a serious illness and being unable to work for a prolonged period is not something you think of every day, but it can still happen. An unexpected injury or illness can make it difficult to manage the numerous financial obligations, save financial loss and keep your family financially secured.

With the right sickness cover insurance, you can keep up with payments while you’re off work without having to spend all your savings. If you haven’t thought about sickness insurance so far, it might be the right time to start looking for ways to protect your income in case disaster strikes.

Protect Your Income When an Unfortunate Instant Occurs

Accident and illness insurance is also known as accident and sickness protection cover and provides cover as a portion of the insured person’s income if they are unable to work due to a covered event arising from a bodily injury or sickness. This highly necessary sickness cover insurance is designed to provide you with a monthly benefit of up to 80% of your income until you are able to return to work. For example, if you were to break your arm in a car accident and this injury prevented you from returning to work, you would be entitled to a weekly benefit consistent with the scope of cover you selected.

Most policies allow you to choose either accident only or accident and illness combined. Depending on your needs, you can also find an option of lump sum payment for death by accident or temporary total/partial disablement. When constructing your solution, you need to consider a few features. The best way is to choose a reliable insurance agency that can provide you with all the necessary information about critical illness insurance. You need to consider the waiting period, benefit period, ownership structures and scope of cover.

The waiting period is the amount of time you must be unable to work for until you can make a claim. The options may vary, but typically they include seven days, 14 days, 21 days or 28 days. Selecting a longer waiting period usually results in a lower cost of the insurance, but it may also mean waiting longer before you can claim.

The benefit period length of time you will continue to receive benefits for once you’re on the claim. The options vary here too, but a typical set of options includes 6 months, one year, two years or three years. You can always opt for a shorter benefit period to cut insurance cost, but that is also limiting your cover. The professional can advise you on getting the right insurance without compromising the stability of your company and family in case of an unfortunate event.

Who Can Benefit from Sickness Cover Insurance?

Sickness cover insurance can benefit most people who work to earn a living, but it’s particularly valuable for sole-traders, contractors and small-business owners. Those who do not qualify for Income Protection Insurance can also benefit a lot from sick and accident insurance. If you know that your livelihood depends on your wellbeing and a prolonged period will have a direct impact on your income, affect your savings, family and lifestyle, then you have an exposure. Whatever your profile is, you can customise your level of cover by choosing from a range of policy options to tailor your cover to suit your lifestyle.

What Is Typically Covered?

Sickness cover insurance will protect your income in a plethora of unfortunate instants. By investing in this type of income protection, you are securing your earnings in case of an injury that happened anywhere, loss of income as a result of an illness or loss of income as a result of injury or illness combined. The kinds of illnesses that are covered are usually long-term and very serious conditions such as a heart attack or stroke, loss of arms or legs, or diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. Some optional extensions can also include death benefits, disablement benefits and business expenses.

What Is Typically Not Covered?

Although your insurance company can cover sickness and injury in most cases, most of the insurers do not cover pre-existing conditions, pregnancy and childbirth, and injuries that occur while being under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Acts that are intentional, criminal or otherwise deliberately caused by you, participating in professional sports and acts of war and terrorism are also not covered.

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Girls like to be complimented – even when they know that they look amazing, they still want to hear those words from you. Verbalizing your feelings is essential because it brings the two of you closer and adds to the intimacy of the relationship. However, it’s important to know what to say and when to say it. Sometimes, the best compliments are cute and simple but they’re just said at the right times.

There are many sweet and romantic things to say to your girlfriend, but choosing the right words can be a difficult task sometimes.

If you are looking for something really cute to say to your girl, check out this list of 23 romantic lines that will make her feel special.

Keep in mind that you need to use the right words at the right moment. These cute lines should be revealing your true emotions – don’t say anything you can’t stand behind fully and tell her how you really feel about her.

• I enjoy every moment spent with you.
• My life has never been the same since I met you.
• I wish I could wake up next to you every day.
• Your smile makes me smile.
• Do you know how wonderful it is to wake up every day knowing I have you in my life?
• My life is perfect now that I have you, baby.
• You make my heart race without doing a single thing.
• How do you manage to look so beautiful all the time?
• I could stare at your face forever and I’d still feel like I haven’t had enough of you.
• I feel so happy just spending time with you.
• I see your beautiful smile and all my worries disappear.
• Just hearing your voice in the morning makes my day.
• You complete me.
• I want to be there to hold your hand and protect you from any troubles that come your way.
• Your smile is so serene. Makes me forget all my worries.
• If I’m lost, I would love to be found in your eyes.
• I love saying cute things that make you blush.
• I am afraid I would go crazy If I ever lost you.
• If I can start every day with you, I would never think of having a coffee.
• Even after all this time I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see you.
• I don’t think I’ll ever tire of your beautiful smile.
• I love you so much. I just felt like telling you that.
• They say nothing is perfect. They are wrong. Look at you.

The post Popular & Really Cute Things to Say to Your Girlfriend appeared first on The Most Popular.

Pregnancy is such an exciting time in every woman’s life. It is a wonderful experience and something you would want to remember, especially if it’s your first pregnancy. Watching how your body changes and makes room for your growing baby is pretty fascinating. Many moms-to-be will start documenting their pregnancy as soon as they find out they are expecting. If you also want to document this special time in your life, there are plenty of fun and creative ways to do so. Here are some of the most popular ways to document your pregnancy!

Keep a journal

A pregnancy journal is an amazing way to write down all your feelings and thoughts throughout pregnancy. How did you feel when you tested and find out that you’re expecting? Write it in your own words. You can write little notes and add photos to capture your true feelings. If you want you can keep your journal private, but if you want you can also share it with your friends and family.

Weekly updates on chalkboards

This is one of the cutest and most popular ways of documenting pregnancies. Get a chalkboard and keep track of how far along you are. Decorate the chalkboard every week with cute little notes or fun facts about your little one and take a weekly photo to see how your body changes from week to week.

Start a blog

A pregnancy blog is a fun way to document your pregnancy. You can share your feelings, thoughts, daily pictures, and videos with the world online. Of course, the blog doesn’t have to be public if you don’t want. Your pregnancy blog can be an online space that you can share with your close friends and family members.

Start a scrapbook

Start a little scrapbook for your baby where you can store all your beautiful memories of pregnancy in one place. You can include things like sonogram pictures, quotes, notes, nursery inspiration, and daily pictures of your baby bump. The scrapbook can also be a great place to keep silly photos of you and your partner throughout pregnancy

Daily belly photo

This is a great way for friends and family to follow your progress. Take a special picture in the same place every day, so you can easily see your progression as the days go by. You can literally watch how your belly changes and grows. You could even take the photos and make a video of your belly getting larger.

Make videos

You can make a simple video (on your phone) each week to record your belly growth. Talk about what you are most excited about and share your feelings or thoughts throughout pregnancy. You could also create a fun time-lapse video with photos of your baby bump and cute baby songs. Someday you will look back on these memories and you will laugh.

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“I didn’t believe that angels exist in the same Earth we live, but now that I see you, I know for sure that they do.” Have you ever been approached by a guy who pulled out a cheesy pick up line like this one? Given the fact that pick up lines are incredibly popular among lame and uncreative teenagers, it’s very likely that every girl has found herself in such an uncomfortable situation.

Even though the outcome is often slapping, throwing drinks at their faces and mean comebacks and they’re widely considered as inefficient, one-liners are still widely used. But have you ever wondered why do guys use pick up lines from the Internet or TV shows to start a conversation with girls?

According to my research on the Internet, teenagers feel pressure to be popular, to be like all the other cool guys and to not be left out. In one of the most beautiful periods of their lives, most teens feel the need to follow the crowd and be “cool” by someone else’s terms. How happy and fulfilled a young person can be during these years depends on how well does he\she fit in the crowd. If one doesn’t, their teenage years could be a real torture that can leave emotional scars for a lifetime.

If you think that this is in no way connected with this topic, you’ve missed my point. Fueled up by the story of his classmate who told him how he picked up a girl the other night by successfully pulling a one-liner, one may also look on the Internet for pick up lines and try it out. No matter if it works like a charm or not, he’ll definitely tell his friends, who might pass on the pick-up-lines-trend to others and so on. My point is that, those lame lines are popular just because most teens consider them as an essential part of their teen years. In order to be as cool as their friends, teenagers hide away their individuality from girls and show their lame side instead.

Another possible reason why cheesy one-liners are still used by many could be that the conversation starter no longer plays as much important role as it used to. According to multiple studies, girls who are looking for a fling don’t pay much attention on the type and quality of the pick up line, but on the guy’s look. In other words, the quality of the conversation starter teens use doesn’t matter as much as their attractiveness. This could mean that in many cases, it was not the lines that worked, but guys’ look. Nevertheless, all of the credit was given to the art of the pick up lines and so the popularity boosted.

Next time you see a girl you want to meet, think of a good conversation started based on what’s going on around rather than lame pick up lines. You don’t need to be a part of the crowd and use popular lines to win a girl’s heart – you need to be yourself.

The post What Makes Pick Up Lines so Popular Among Teens? appeared first on The Most Popular.

The one who no one knew what the hell was he working (his first job) and the wannabe actor presented the idea of friendship perfectly: daily mocking, mutual support and caring about each other’s needs (foodwise). Most people assume that there is nothing they don’t know about their best friends, including Joey and Chandler, but is that true? If you think it is, you can play a game of best friend tag questions with your best friend and put your friendship on the test.

Over the last decade, the game of best friend tag questions has become incredibly popular among teenagers and young adults. Besides making a great party theme, it promises to boost your friendship if it truly is as valuable as you two believe. Also, you should know that the game could provide a make-or-break-friendship moment, which may force you to take a step back and re-evaluate your entire friendship. On the bright side, you and your best friend could find out something new, embarrassing or surprising about each other that will bring you closer and so take your friendship to a higher level than ever.

The game is very simple. In turns, one of you ask the other one best friend questions. These questions could be of any category you like and you could ask them literally anything, unless you both rule out a topic or few before you start playing. No matter how uncomfortable or awkward you feel about answering a particular question, you must answer it and truthfully too. Lying during the game can ruin the game, as well as your friendship.

If you want to have an advantage, prepare yourself some friendship tag questions in advance. There must be some unanswered questions or questions you never dared to ask in your mind. These kind of questions make perfect best friend challenge questions, so take your time and think. If you’re not afraid of making your get-to-know-each-other-better game public, you can play it on Facebook. Post each other a question on your timeline and throw an online party for everyone of your friends’ lists. This way, any of your friends can add a comment on your answers and make it all more interesting. If you find the game of best friend tag questions utterly simple, feel free to play it by your own rules.

source: http://bloghappens.com/best-friend-tag-questions-to-ask/

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