Hello, my friends and welcome to Monet Cafe. I am very happy to be back in Monet Cafe myself in my home studio because I have done some traveling over the past few weeks. And I did get to do a little painting, which was nice. I got about three little paintings done while traveling. It was business and family for the trip. But I missed you guys and I missed being in my studio. But the great thing is I am so excited about our new little Facebook page that another subscriber recommended that we start. I unfortunately originally started it as a Facebook page and I have since changed it to a closed group. And I did that because it allows us to keep some of our work private. Sometimes you might be sharing something you want some critiques about or some advice about and you don't want it to be a page that everyone can see. So please come and find the Facebook page called Monet Cafe. Again, it's not a page. It's a closed group and you will have to ask to join. But I will gladly welcome any of my YouTube subscribers to join our group. What's great about the group is we can share things amongst each other. Unlike the YouTube channel, you guys can share a comment and I can reply back. And we don't get the dynamic of a group conversation. What I've loved while I was traveling is I got to share some of my artwork and got to talk with some of you guys on there and some of the members on there have shared their artwork. And what's neat is I'm seeing some of you guys talk and learn from each other as well. So it's really neat. So come on over to Monet Cafe Facebook. I'll share the link in this video so you'll know how to join. So without further ado, I wanted to talk a little bit in this video about some of the challenges that you're having. I've learned from the Facebook page that there's a challenge that a lot of people have the same challenge I had with how to get started with a pastel and not to get too fussy too quick, not to get in a lot of detail too quickly. And another thing is again on value is how do we determine the value in a painting? You know, I always talk about it. And so do, you know, any professional artist talks about the importance of value. So I thought we'd go a little bit deeper into that right here. And I had another subscriber ask if I could show how I sort out my values and choose my colors and values for a particular painting. I've picked a reference photo that's just a basic photo of a tree in a field. And I love things that have distance because that gives you the ability to use your value and make it work for you in the painting and create a sense of illusion with that. So what I'm gonna be doing here is these pastels are ones that I have chosen for this particular painting. I tried to keep it not very traditional, I guess you'd say, not like a lot of bright greens and things. I wanted to keep a more muted, neutral palette to keep it really, really simple. So I've just got a selection of pastels. What I did to choose these colors is I looked at the reference photo and I started analyzing the darks and the lights first. Now there's a lot of green in this but you can see they're cool greens. They're not warm greens. Cool greens lean more towards the blue end of the color scale and warm greens will lean more towards the yellow. And I wanted to, you learn as an artist, you get to use your artistic license and you get better at this the more you do. First of all, you just wanna paint, you have a tendency to paint exactly what you see. And so when I first started painting, I would just do a whole bunch of green in this. And now I'm learning that I can use some more cool greens, some purples and some other values and colors to push back that field in the back to make it appear like it's further away. So I wanna get started now. The first thing I'm gonna do is have a little test with you guys and let's pick out these pastels together in a value scale according to light and dark. So I'm going to get my camera more stable and we'll get started with that. It should be fun. All right, here we go. I actually decided just to go ahead and hold my camera here. I think we can make this suffice. All right, so in this little arrangement of pastels, again, I'm keeping this kind of a cooler neutral palette here to make it easy. We've got a variation of values here. I'll show you right now another quick little tool. It's called a gray scale and value finder. This is a handy tool. If you're on location doing plein air painting or you're doing from a photograph, you can use this little scale. And what you do is I'll put my painting up here to give you an idea. What you do is you take the value finder. Let's say we're looking at this value right back in here and you take these little keyholes and you try to find the closest to the value. You can tell the tree, I'll do that upper portion of the tree there because it's a little lighter. That's too dark there. That's still too dark. We're just doing the upper part of that tree. That's getting closer. But when you get to distant trees, you're more in a value scale of this one called value five. Now, the lighter values down here are gonna be more for your sky and things that are even further into the distance, mountains, things like that. And then of course, when you get to your ground and your foreground, you get more into these darker values in here. So it's a handy dandy little tool. So I just thought I'd share that. But right now, because we've had some other people ask, I want you guys to help me. Would you please help me arrange these pastels? We're gonna go, let's start light to dark. So a trick that I have is to squint my eyes or if you have a dimmable light, you can dim your light to do this. So if I squint my eyes and I look at these pastels, I'm gonna do them first kind of quickly and then we'll get them more correct as we go. I know these and they're kind of dirty. So I often clean them off.  So this one has a little more yellow in it. This one has a little more blue. What you look for with value is kind of brightness. So some people would say, well, it's kind of hard to tell those apart. But if I squint my eyes, this one's just a little bit brighter than that one, okay? So now I'm gonna squint my eyes and I'm just gonna keep going with these and arranging them according to value. So let me start doing that. And you guys, I'll try to do it a little slowly so you guys can squint along with me. What do you think would be next here? Hmm, okay. Then sometimes what I'll do when I get questionable about something, I'll start putting the darkest over there. You can easily see this as the darkest dark. And then we've got some of these greens and other purples and things over here. This one's pretty dark too, but it's not quite as dark as that. You can kind of tell next to the foam, the black foam next to it. Of course, we've got a dark here and this one's pretty dark. Okay, we've still got some of our middle ones in here. I'm still thinking about which ones are the lightest ones in here. It's kind of interesting here. Is this a dark? I'm running out of room in my little tray here. This is kind of a bright green I was gonna use for some of the foreground grasses. You can squint your eyes and see that's pretty bright too. So it's gonna fall somewhere in here. This one is darker than this. It's darker than this. Might switch those. It's darker than that.  I think it's darker than this. I think we're getting there now. I think I'll kind of rearrange these to give me some more room. Okay, so we've got dark, dark, less dark and it's going down from there. Okay, so we're getting there. This one's darker.  That's what you do. Just think of it as a game. So I'm still thinking about this right here. Remember too, I have someone, I've gotten kind of close to some of you guys on YouTube and on Facebook that I experienced some of your struggles and one particular subscriber, she's precious. She has mentioned and I know it's the same thing other people are challenged with. So I love sharing it. Is that it's hard sometimes when you're dealing with different colors to determine the value. If you're all in the same family of blue, it's just kind of easy. But once you start adding in different hues, it gets a little harder. So when we've got a blue next to a pink, it's like, ah, which one's darker? But again, do the squinting of the eyes and it really does help a lot. I still got this blue back in here. Obviously, it's pretty bright though, you know? Now I'm gonna share with you another trick. I'm gonna leave it as is. I think I've got some things I need to switch around. But I'm gonna leave this, this one's lighter actually. Nope, I'm gonna leave it. Even if there's something wrong to show you my test, you take a black and white photo or you take a photo and you convert it to black and white and then you can more easily see the value. So let's do that right now, even if some of these are in the wrong place, all right? All right, so now I've taken my black and white photo and I was pretty close but I was able to see a couple of things that needed to be changed. One of them was this little green that I had on the bottom that was just kind of sitting here. I could see from the photo that it is more in this area here. And I could also see that this blue, I'm going from memory now because I'm not looking at the photo, was over here, it actually is a little more into this value area here. And then I also saw from the photo that again, this is back to determining with color. It gets a little bit harder but from the black and white photo, it was my observation that this was a little bit brighter and lighter in value than this one here. These were the rest of these were pretty good. So anyway, that is just a quick little way for you to kind of get an idea of value. And once again, all of these things, they become natural the more you do it. And sometimes we have a tendency to look at other artists work and we think they were always that good and they weren't. And I really need to share some of my beginning work because I listened to some of your, or look at some of your comments and I'm like, wow, that's exactly some of the same stuff I was challenged with and some of the same frustrations I have. So hopefully I can find some of my old work and just show you guys. Yep, we all take the same journey together. Okay, so now we're gonna actually start with the painting and have a lot more learning to do. Here we go, all right.  I think this is, that's bigger than a five by seven I think. But anyway, it's a vertical format like my reference photo. And the first thing I'm gonna do is you know a lot of times I do an under painting but I don't want in this video to use anything that the viewers may not have. So sometimes I use the neocolor wax pastels and sometimes I'll do watercolor under painting but this is gonna be purely pastel and I am gonna do a little under painting but I'm just gonna do it with pastels and water, okay? So what I'm gonna do is I just have this little new pastel here that sometimes it's good just for sketching things in. I like to break my pastels because sometimes I like to use the wide part. So this is just to focus on getting in a general sketch. We're sort of getting some values in with this but mostly we're just getting in the shapes here, okay? So we're just kind of, again, simple, simple, simple, simple and big shapes to small shapes. You work big and basic then before you get to any detail, okay? So we're just gonna get in. A lot of times I don't even really do a sketch with a line sometimes artists do but if I have some big shapes like this I'll just, I'm just using the side of my pastel. I'm just looking at this tree as I'm working and again, I've stressed this in some other videos. Drawing skills are important. I know right now it doesn't look like I'm drawing but I'm using drawing skills. What I'm doing with my eye is measuring things. I keep looking at my reference photo. I was blessed to have an art class in my graphic design, quite a few art classes in my graphic design major in school and I learned some core lessons that really helped which is draw what you see, not what you think you see. We often, our brains tell us this is a tree. It has to look like this but sometimes trees don't go in the ways that are what we're seeing. So we need to, or what our mind is telling us. So we need to just look and think of it as a shape not as a tree, okay? So that is always a good thing to do is look at the shapes.  Now I'm going very softly right here. I'm just getting in, again, this is more just for me to lay my pastels on. This is a much lighter thing down here so I'm just going really lightly. There is a, behind this tree, we've got the sky. Again, I'm looking at the shape in my reference photo and the sky makes like a, almost like a bowl like a side here, a bottom, and then a side here. So I just, I see that shape. I'm not thinking I'm doing a sky. I'm thinking about that shape. Now I'm just going to dab this. I'm just getting hints of this background field there just to know it's there. Now I do have down, this is about a good composition here. It's about a third of the way down is where this horizon line is. And it just kind of, it's going to be really light in the background.  And there's some bushes back behind this tree but I'm not going to worry about that right now. Now, one of my lightest lights, of course, is the sky. Almost always the lightest light. And then sometimes your grasses and some flowers and things, my paper's curved up so it's making a weird shape. But I've got a nice little shadow behind this tree. Okay. And there's a real light section in here. It gets a little dark behind there but I'll do that with pastels. Again, this is just for a sketch. And then I've got always at the roots of the grasses, you typically have darker values, okay? It's like, you've got the shadows from the grasses going down to the ground. They're closer, things closer are usually a darker value. Now this field, it does have, it almost looks like some weedy kind of grasses but they've got some light colors to them. But I'm not going to put those lights down just yet, okay? We want to put the darks down first and then put the lights over top of it, okay? So that was a really, really quick little idea just to get where I'm going with this. So then when I look at my reference photo now, I don't have to worry about where things are as much. You still want to place things correctly but now I'm just going to start working on value. So this is going to be a value underpainting using what's called local color. Local color just means the color of the scene. And you know, I improvise with colors myself as far as changing them but it's basically the colors of the scene as compared to or in contrast to complimentary color. You can do an underpainting using the complimentary color. I love those types of underpaintings because it really gives a little punch to the painting. For example, a complimentary color to green might be an orange or a reddish or something. So you would lay down those colors and do all complimentary colors as you're underpainting and then put the local color on top. But you can also just do local color, okay? So I already know that the sky is the lightest thing. I've got my little pastels already arranged in value like we did. So this should help. I don't keep them that way normally but like I said, because you get better at that, this is really kind of whiter than I want for this but I might add a little bit of this. This one has a little bit more of a bluish hint to it. And almost always skies are darker up at the upper atmosphere. I'm not even gonna worry about my sky holes all that much. You know, usually you put those in in between the tree. You don't draw the tree, you carve the tree out with the sky holes but this again is just for getting values in. We're gonna work big to small. Okay, so now I have a tree back here. Now let's look, I'll try to keep my values arranged this way. Going light to dark. If I was to draw this group of background trees, they look almost like they're not mountains, the trees in the background but they could be mountains too, okay? So it is not going to be way over here, that's too dark. You know, they're really far away so they're gonna be closer to the lighter values. Okay, so I'm going to just kind of get in an idea of those and I'm working, there's a lot of Terry Ludwig's on here. There's a few that are different but mostly Terry Ludwig's so. We kind of got this kind of going in here and again some of this might peek through that tree later but I'm not gonna worry about that right now. Okay, so now we have this tree here. Trees are always one of the darkest things if you have them in your reference photo because they're upright, okay? And the sun is shining down and maybe the tops of the trees or some of these parts of the tree are going to be lighter but the bases of the trees and in between it and the sides, they're always going to be darker. So this tree back here is going to be darker. I might even go a little darker than that. It's usually better to lay dark down and then lay light down on top of it. So I'm gonna give this one a little darker value than it'll end up but it's okay because we're gonna add the lighter shadows on top of that. That's the neat thing about pastel. You can just kind of layer and work with stuff. Now this one here, it's actually lighter in the reference photo. Yeah, I need to change that. See, it's just even me. I'm always adjusting and working on things. Yeah, this one's going to be more of a value like in here. And by the way, I may take this more to completion but the point of this is not for me to make this finished fantastic painting. It's more just for a value lesson. Okay, and I might even take, might even take a little bit of this darker. This is the darkest dark that I have and I might even take some of that and add in here because I know I do have, and see how I'm not drawing in leaves. I'm working with shapes. I see that there's shadows in towards the middle section of this tree. It's gonna lighten up later. But again, down at the base of these bushes that are at the ground, and that's a little darker too, okay? So got an idea there. Now I got this field back here. Actually I've got something that's a little darker value. These are like the trees or the mountains in the background. And I used this for that color or value. And so now getting down, there's either some bushes or the bases of these trees down closer to the ground, they're a little darker value because they're closer to the ground, okay? So we got a little bit of that going on there. And now in here, we've got kind of a really neat color going on there. What have we got there? And I can lighten this up too. I think I'm gonna do this here. It's like a little bit of a field. And directional strokes are another thing that's really gonna help your painting. If your field is flowing and meandering, take your pastel in that direction, okay?  We wanna keep it going in the directions of the motion that it's in. Okay, now I'm squinting my eyes again and I may lay down some lighter values on top of this. I'm squinting my eyes and I'm looking back here. This is one of the lighter values in the field. It's like the sun shining down on it. But you know what? I still wanna give it a little bit of dirt, okay? So let me see here. What am I gonna do here? See, I'm always learning here too. This is the one I just used. Let's see here. I have a tendency to wanna put down, see, I might even do something a little crazy here. Okay, see, this is a darker value than what I see right now. But if I put this dark value down and then I lay a lighter value on top of it, it's gonna lighten it up, okay? And I can put a little bit of this blue in this field back here. I might be getting a little too detailed too quickly. Again, I'm just constantly squinting my eyes. That's gonna, this is definitely gonna lighten up, okay? So I put that down just so I can put something else over top of it. And I think I might even put some of this over it. Now I'm gonna do an application of water to this for the underpainting. So I don't really need to do a whole lot of color mixing. Keep focused, Susan. I get to go in and get kinda carried away sometimes. Okay, now we know there is a really dark shadow back here. So I'm just gonna take my darkest dark and go ahead and put that down. And it goes kinda up to the tree and a little bit on this side of the tree. And then I know this tree, you learn, you get better at turning these pastels, they're really chunky, but you learned pressure is key and positioning is also key as to where, where is this, where's the point of it? You know, where's the edge? And that will help you in getting better at knowing where to place these strokes. Okay, now this tree also has some darker darks in here. So I'm looking, if you could see my head, I'm almost looking at the reference photo more than I'm looking at my pastel surface. I know I've got a nice little dark section coming out here and some things coming down more. And when I apply the water, some of this is all gonna merge together. So I don't need to worry about it all that much. Okay, so I'm squinting, I'm squinting. I got these going in. Okay, got my big shapes working. All right, now down in, let's see which color. Yeah, see, this is darker. I just checked this color against this one that I just put down. That's the one I put down. You can easily see this is darker than that, okay? So the lighter value is gonna push back more. It goes further in the distance. So I need to get rid of that. It's not gonna make that much of a difference. Okay, so there's that lighter green. So now I'm getting down in front of the tree a little bit. I know, even though I'm gonna add some lighter flowers on top of that, I know that I'm just using the side of the pastel. I know that these grasses, I can see they're darker. Okay, and definitely a darker value, okay? And now we've got an even darker value of roots and grasses coming down here. My new pastel already got some of that for me. Getting that dark value, but I'm gonna get it even more here with some of this. It's really important to get those darks down first because with pastel, you can lay those lights on top. A little bit of that going on behind there. Okay, so I'm gonna get a little more darks in here. Kind of like this green too. And I can add those light flowers later. So don't worry about the light flowers just yet. That's coming on top. Again, working big to small. Not worried about the flowers. I'm thinking more about the field, okay? Now I purposely tried to keep this a little sectional, so it might help you to work big to small yourself and work in sections, okay? So we've got a light sky, lightest thing in the painting. Also had somebody recommend me trying to get the shadows away from my hand. It's not a professional studio, but I'll try to work on lighting. I mean, a professional filming studio. So I'll try to work on lighting to make that better, but for now I'll hold my hand over here. Lightest thing is the sky. Darkest thing are these trees, especially this tree trunk and in here. This is a little darker right now than it's gonna be, but that's okay, cause that allows me to add those lighter values on top of it. We're getting the darks in here. Then we've got some lighter values in the far distant mountains or trees coming into this field. I know I've got a section of light. I'm gonna keep that kind of light right now. And then the medium to dark values down here. I'm actually even gonna add a little bit of my darkest dark. It's a purple down here. Again, see, you know, your brain would say, I gotta do green down there. But no, throw in some different colors you can use, but also same time, keep some color harmony in your pastel selections. Okay, so here we have just a general idea of blocking in shapes, keeping it simple. And now we're gonna apply. I think I'll just do, well, I think I actually will do rubbing alcohol. I've had some people ask what kind of alcohol. And it was kind of funny to me because someone was like, what's the difference between denatured alcohol and regular alcohol? Denatured is what a lot of artists recommend. And I didn't even know what denatured alcohol was. But a artist friend was nice enough to share on one of our videos here that it's basically alcohol, regular rubbing alcohol, that's had the alcohol content taken out of it for drinking purposes. Crazy that anybody would drink rubbing alcohol. I don't know. But anyway, so it's kind of the same thing. So it doesn't matter if it's rubbing alcohol or denatured alcohol, someone even recommended you could use vodka. I haven't tried that and I probably won't since I don't drink vodka. And I don't think red wine would work good. Anyway, all right, let's get serious now. I'm gonna get the rubbing alcohol and apply this to make an underpainment. Okay, I have gotten my rubbing alcohol and I'm getting a brush right now. And when I walked away to get the alcohol, I noticed when I was pretty far from the surface of the painting, I could see the values looked believable. They looked accurate. So that's another tip is to step back from your work. That's why I often, if I'm not filming, I'm sitting right now, but I often like to work at my easel that's over there behind this little easel. And it's so that I can back up a lot because you can see things better far away and you can see the values better and the composition better. So it's just a good idea to do that. I have now some rubbing alcohol. It's just like I said, it's just isopropyl alcohol that I got from Walgreens, okay? And I have it in a little sake dish. I'll definitely have to rinse this out if I have any sake. But the reason I just use a small cup is this is a small painting and I don't wanna waste a whole lot of alcohol. I don't wanna dip it right out of the jug. That would be hard. But anyway, so I'm gonna use this. And as I work, I'm going to keep cleaning my brush with my paper towel. The reason for that is that I don't wanna mix these values together. So I'm dipping and I'm cleaning, okay? So I'll try to mention that as I work. So I typically work top to bottom because sometimes I like the way the colors run. Sometimes I'll even just kinda roll my paintbrush. And I wanna get too much. I got a little too much there. I don't want it to run like crazy now.  So I also, when I dip my brush with alcohol, I dab it just a little, which I forgot to do that last time, so that I don't have too awfully much. Now this white, it's not gonna do a whole lot or it's kind of a bluish white when I add the alcohol. But the other colors will. And I've had people ask sometimes, what is the difference between using the rubbing alcohol versus using water? And it just dries faster. So it's just kind of a convenience. I don't notice a whole lot of difference. Can you already see these values in here? How it's going from light to dark, just adding this rubbing alcohol. And it's giving that illusion of distance. Oh, I hear my dog walking down the stairs of my studio. That's funny. Hey Jackson. Okay, so just a little bit of knowing the right thing and taking your time and getting values right is really going to help. Now sometimes too, to get that painterly look, sometimes I'll hold my brush in a different way and make strokes that are in different positions so it doesn't look so perfect. Take my tree up a little taller. That's actually a little too tall. But that's okay, cause I could always fix that. Okay, this tree's coming down in here a little bit. I've got this little bush in here. See my brush is already drying. That looks a little like a mess there, but I'll fix that. This here, this field actually comes around a little more. So I'm just going to bring it around and get a little bit of this going on behind the tree. Again, I don't want to get it too muted in this case. Sometimes I like the drips, but this is more for a lesson on getting the values right. So I don't want to get all crazy and too artistic. I just want to keep it kind of basic right now. Again, there's some darker values behind this tree, but when I go and wet those tree branches, that's going to kind of just blend all that out. Okay, so let me, usually I do go top to bottom typically. So again, you can see that this tree, I have added a whole bunch of the darkest starts. Now I'm going to dry my brush out pretty good cause I know these colors of the tree towards the edges, they're a little soft and muted in the photo and I like that look. So I'm going to kind of keep it that way. And this branch has come down. I'm constantly measuring with my eyes, seeing how do things relate to each other? How far, what's the shape like in here and how far does the tree branch come down in relation to the trunk, you know, or whatever. And this again is not supposed to be that fussy. I'm actually spending too much time on this.  Again, I know this tree is going to have some sky holes in it but I'm not going to worry about that too much right now. We carve those out later. So all right, so I'm rinsing my brush off again to get that dark. So there's a lot of dark on there cause I don't want that color on this other little side that I'm going to be working here. Well, I think actually I will keep working on the dark right here. You know, we had that shadow that was down by the tree, cleaning it now cause I don't want all that dark, there's still some dark on there. And it actually, that's, I'm glad I did that because colors, when you wet them, pastels, when you wet them with this alcohol, they look darker than they dry. You can already see in the background some of the other stuff is drying pretty good. This is still a little dark but that's okay cause we're going to lay those light pastels down over it. So I'm just going to finish this to get the idea. We've got lots of dark down here. It almost seemed like, oh my gosh, it's too dark. That's too dark, but it's not going to be. It is a little darker than the tree which that shouldn't be that way but we can add more darks to this. Oh, it's cause it's wet. See how that's dry? This is going to dry lighter. Okay, now I might smooth this out a little bit right in here and just blend that a little bit more. So we got some nice stuff happening here. Again, learning how to just angle things and use directional strokes is going to help you a whole lot. Okay, so it looks kind of like a mess but it keeps that looseness. If you know, and that's one of the goals, not the only goal of Monet Cafe but I've been on a learning adventure ever since I've been an artist to get that painterly look and that loose look. Okay, so we got a general idea here. Doesn't look like anything special but we've got our big shapes in here, we've got our values in here and we've got something to work from. We don't start with this stark piece of paper that's saying, what do I do? You get the basics in and then you get going and that's just always the way that I like to start and I think almost all artists that I consider great artists start that way, big to small. I've seen people who can start with little things and work their way all around the paper but that's more photo realism, people who work that way. So anyway, let's let this dry and then we'll come back and do a little bit more work. All right, I turned a light on so it might look a little brighter here and I hope I don't have too much of a shadow here. It's not too bad. And so this is the point we get at when we've finished with the underpainting and we're ready to start taking it easy of course. Don't get too carried away but we're still working big to small and I've already got the basic values in so let's get going with this. I think what I'm gonna do is establish these tree shapes a little bit better and then go from there. All right, so I'm just gonna work a little bit here and maybe interject a few things as I go. Okay, I've found a couple of other pastels that I might want to try to use in the sky. Again, just to give a little warmth to the sky, I see that in the reference photo and again, back to the question someone had is how do I choose my colors or my color palette? What I do is I kind of, it kind of evolves as I go along sometimes. I'll get in my basic values and then I'll kind of see what I like in the photo or in the real life and then I'll enhance that and if I don't like something, I won't. Yes, this color is way better. You see how that's already a lighter value and I'm just gonna get some of that in just to give some interest to the sky. I'm going to again, lighten it up. As I move down lower, I need to cover that up. I had that darker value. It's kind of interesting. I'll work on my sky holes in a minute and again, if you haven't heard yet what sky holes are, they are, instead of you drawing the branches to the trees, you actually carve the tree out by drawing or painting the holes. It's like you're working negatively. You'll see when I add them. All right, I've got one of these that might be, they're about the same value there. Okay, kind of like that, kind of like that. Back at this pinkish color, I think that was, it was a little darker, but I'm gonna add just a hint of that up at the top. And also sky holes, when you add them, it's usually best to add a little tad of a value darker in the sky hole than too light. If I added like a white here, see I got kind of this whitish down towards this horizon line, I mean this tree line, but if I add that there, that's just too stark. I'm just doing it a little bit here, versus adding, I'll just pick a different color, something a little darker in value there. It looks a little better. All right, now notice how already, even if I didn't do anything to this background here, we've already got the values established where you really feel like those are distant fields or mountains or something. And so that is already working in our favor. All right, now I'm squinting my eyes at the reference photo, and I am gonna start working my way down. I do feel like I would love to get some of this delicious blue in here. This is a really nice blue, and I happen to love this particular color. I think this is a unison, but I'm gonna look at it right here. It looks like, yeah, this is gonna push these back a little bit further.  Now with this, it's gonna continue behind the tree, so this would be kind of more of the color that we would use. I'm just giving an example to make the sky holes behind this tree. In other words, it's obvious that whatever's behind the tree, that's the color you would use. Even if you can't see it, you can imagine what is behind there. Like this right here is what's behind this section of the tree. So you're gonna use something more in this, is this the one I used? Oh, no, this one, you know, so that would be kind of the color of the sky hole there. That's a nice color, I like that. I'm gonna tone that down a little bit. Okay, so now let me see. Sometimes I also, too, if I'm using a particular color, I like to go ahead, even though I'm kind of working my way down here, I like to go ahead and introduce it wherever else it might be. Like I see that behind this tree and this paper, it really helps if your paper's flat. My UART paper got a little warped. Don't leave it sitting out, by the way. Try to lay it flat and set it in between stuff. But it creates a little bit of that glow that I'm seeing back here to give that moody feel. Again, you get to a point where you kind of use your imagination. As long as you use some rules that are consistent with good art, you don't wanna get too crazy. But here's something interesting here. Now I know this has a little bit darker underneath it, but notice how this blue back here, they don't look the same value with where they are. It's based on that illusion of what's happening with the color around it. I'll have to do another video one time to show you how color and value is greatly affected by what color is around it. So that's a whole nother lesson. Okay, so now I'm looking back in here and seeing what I might want to get in there. Again, this is far away. So the value, this is gonna be too light, but I just wanna check it. Yeah, that's too light. I might, let's see this one again. I like this is kind of what I had, but I'm almost, when I look at the reference photo, I'm almost seeing like some lavender going across the middle part of the field there. This right here comes in front of the tree and purples always make a great shadow, but I'm almost seeing like maybe this color lavender. Now this is a big old chunky pastel, but I'm gonna try to, I'm just lightly touching now and just giving a little bit of, oh, sometimes I get carried away, a little bit of that lighter field color, almost like the grasses are kind of rolling and I might have to darken that up a little bit. Occasionally, I try not to do it too often. I'll soften a little with my finger right now. I'm just barely touching it just to get those lines away. Okay, and I might do more to that distant field there, but we're getting the idea. Now I know around this side, because the sun's over here, we're gonna get some cooler, darker blue values in there. So let me see what I can find here. Sometimes I'll see the color in my mind and I can't find it in front of me. I love this color blue too. This might have been the color that I was looking for for here. Yeah, that's nice too, I like that. So we got that, but I do want to use, let me find something here. Now notice I started with a limited palette and I do that a lot and then I will gradually add more as I go, but I try to stay within the, that's the blue I was looking for right there. I try to stay within the same general color palette idea I had to begin with, but you may need to sometimes get a few more colors than when you start. Now, this is, look at that just gorgeous blue for a shadow, that is so nice. I feel like that would look nice in here too, because you got that darker dark for the shadow, but you need some other lighter values, cooler values in here. See how that just did that? That is just, you don't even need to do a whole lot more than that. That's just so nice. All right, now I know we've got over here, there's like where this is coming around, I see in the reference photo, there's like a row of grasses here and I have such a light touch right now. I'm just barely doing anything. You just want to hint at it. Our brain will put it together. Okay, so we got it all kind of meandering and rolling. I tend to pick reference photos and images and prefer things that have a lot of depth and perspective. It's just what I love. It's the kind of paintings I love that I'm drawn to. And so that's why I tend to work that way. All right, I'm squinting again and I'm looking now. Again, I don't want to get too tedious yet. We're still in the middle stages right now. And we're getting, I like to work on the whole painting rather than just a little part of the painting. Now don't get me wrong, I used to work on just a little part of the painting. I could wear out something. And then I'm like, why did I do that? I totally overworked that. So not gonna do that anymore. All right, now I'm seeing there's some middle grasses in here that have a little bit of a depth and shadow to it. Oh, that's a little too light. I think I want to get darker, darker. I think it might be this here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'm adding a little bit more of this particular. It's like a gray blue. It's enhancing that moody feel that we have going on. Let's see, a little bit of that. Let's see where else is it dark. And a lot of times just check it. Just put a little mark down and check it. Won't be the end of the world if it's not the right value. Okay, so now let's see here. All right, I'm gonna be quiet a little bit. I think I've given enough instruction for a while and you can just watch me work. Okay, I took a step back and tried to soak all this in and I noticed my sky holes are a little inappropriately placed here. I've got a little too busy down here, I think, so I'm gonna rectify that. But that's why you wanna walk away sometimes. And it's still at a very workable phase right now. So I'm going to finish this up. And as always, I'll share this at the finished painting at the end of the video and at the beginning of the video so you can see how it turned out. So I hope you learned something. Please subscribe and please find Monet Café on Facebook and ask to join our group. I'll be more than happy to have you as one of our artists so we can just all learn together. Thanks so much, guys, and always happy painting and I'm so glad we can do this together. Bye.


Hello, my name is Emma Mayer and I am a third year visual arts major at Emily Carr. When the pandemic started, I was fortunate enough to be able to apply for the Emily Cares Bursary. The money I received from this bursary, I was able to use that to purchase art supplies, which I found helped me during these times because it allowed me to create artwork as a stress release. I just wanted to thank all the donors and anyone else who has contributed to our as fun and allowed this to be possible. Thank you.


Like who did I tell to shut up?  I have to say I'm weirdly widely awake Snooze my alarm until like 5 15 and I have more energy right now than I would at like 7 I'm confused I have a Pilates class in like 40 minutes and I'm making Macy go with me because Well, I just am obviously starting a buy ice rolling up my face Hope you guys are enjoying vognus if you guys like it and you're new here subscribe. So ice roller is very necessary Morally, I would just put on a more striizer better don't close much because I don't want to use like my favorite skincare And run out really fast. What do you guys do for skin care for?  Will I see the sun this morning?   Okay time To get ready for Pilates. Okay, so for my actual set I'm gonna wear this year of our son. This is the football Leggings year of our sets are like literally my favorite quality is incredible. They're always most flattering I just like I love them long sleeve. It skims top cute my eggs one sec augmenting is of course and then I'm gonna wear my scarf because Weirdly, it's like not that cold this week, but I still want like some sort of warm scarf is from the okay I'm cute and like bummed it up. All right. My fan is going crazy, but here is a better view. I am So cozy I'm honestly terrifying myself at how I'm literally wide awake right now And you have my daily stoic and drilling to do but I'm gonna do that after Pilates because I don't even think I I'm thinking right now, you know packing up my bag lip balm And I'm ready to go.  I'm actually loving this the hard part is the initial wake up And the fact that you know may see and I her friendship is not gonna last through this morning But I found us energy drinks, which I try to Not drink that much, but I figured that once I'm in hot Pilates. I'm gonna need it I also just like keep packing my bags of things that I know I will need I'm being more prepared Than I've ever been in my life. I think we'll probably go to like a juice place after Get coffee. I wish we can go to tribal but tribal's far out of the way. So good guys This is how people do it. See I thought I could do it like a couple days a week or like a couple times And I'd love it and then over time I'd either be exhausted or I would love it even more I feel like I would love it even more This is gonna be the true test on if Macy and I stay friends here. She is get you a gift though Thank you so much actually, I think that will help you also the fact that though It's so early that the Christmas lights are still up, you know, what are you expecting from this class? Yeah I'm gonna lay down a lot of it like if they're like, oh if you're tired take a break. I don't know how they say that Yeah, it is cute okay, North Pole Like I haven't even noticed it. There's a good juice place around the corner I didn't see plus I had an anxiety for waking up so I get that it's like a gel in right now Okay Between the life you want and the life you are living it's called consistency Focus and mindset. Wow that get me up this morning. Yeah, I love that That's so beautiful How are you feeling after that workout good I did have acid, but I went okay. You like the whole folks like the only bad workout is the one you didn't do Yeah, that's true We're gonna wait oh my gosh It feels way better outside. She's a lot sweatier than I am because she like Really did the workout like also it was okay. We're like in the workout and there's a Nice fill everything there was a part of the workout where they're like you can move up So like the math to go wherever you want and I look and there's one in the front row next to me Which is actually my man. I was just saying yeah And I look back at you and you're like looking the other way. Oh It was good though Honest like review. I think the music was a little loud at times for like that early. Yeah, I get that But I was fine, but like there's sometimes rush like It's too much right now. See I'm obviously I need it as loud as possible or else.  I will say though Whenever to the six same classes they go by so much faster than the other classes I don't know if it's cuz like I'm not awake or what just faster. Sorry guys. We're talking like most people don't have these views I don't know. Should we should we do a second workout? I'm like blanked out to a day and blanked on the name clean juice. I Think Tim Keebo like owns it or something here. There's like a huge mural of him everywhere Yeah, exactly exactly Okay, I have to be honest This has been incredible and I'm gonna give you my one life tip that I have Well, actually, I am a morning person and I'm a morning your teen girl as we know Okay, finishing up my skincare is what I use. I'll have everything linked this Sonya Dakar super clear serum is A game changer with breakouts. I was using it for a few weeks completely clear my skin It ran out of it started breaking out again And I just started using it again two days ago and I can see the difference already like it is next level Summer Fridays heavenly 16 all-in-one face oil. This stuff is amazing. I've never had an oil that I love so much for my face I use the summer Fridays cloud do my strizer love this stuff. It's really lightweight I just like it actually gets job done and then of course my all-time holy grail glow screen golden hour sunscreen I love this stuff.   I don't know what's going on there. I have a few new products I want to try this morning and just see how I like them update. It's eight I've already finished my workout and how my breakfast and I just feel and showered and I'm pretty much almost ready I feel Amazing, so I'm getting ready. I really don't want to wear like much makeup But I do want to try this foundation This is the foundation that my makeup artist uses on me at christen. Farrah y'all are in Dallas Like she's literally the best makeup artist ever, but I don't want to like get ready Fully it's in the 70s this week Which I'm really confused about because it was like 40 last week and it's dropping again I think this weekend. I hate the heat anyways But I hate when it's warm and the holiday season like I am not the girl who wants La weather during the holiday season like I don't want to turn Florida or wherever It's sunny and hot like you will never catch me doing the beach vacation for Christmas. It like needs to be cool That's literally the law. Anyways, this is the Nars light reflecting foundation and obviously I love the way christen doesn't make up like it is Just amazing. So I went to her instagram post the she shares where she shares what product she's using on me And I bought every product that I don't have but obviously I'm not doing a full face. I will say I really like this. I feel like it's Perfect, I don't even know what to wear in this weather like and I'm honestly just in a much better mood when it's cold But it's hot. I'm just like not that pleasant, you know, lipstick the best always going in with the cossus Blur powder this powder is the best powder ever. I'm gonna use the Fenty Beauty bronzer Wow the difference between my besides my face right now. I really like how warm this is remember what I said I wasn't gonna do makeup. Do you are blush still my favorite blush? I Really like a lot of blush because I like a lot of color in my face, you know, I have this Laura Mercier Highlighter guys. I just did it again. I stabbed my eye.  I had a cordial abrasion I don't think it's not bad, but it's definitely like not great. Oh my god. I Also still don't know. Oh now. I'm just gonna hit myself. I'm done. I'm literally done with myself. Honestly like Part of me wants to just wear.  Ooh, ooh part of me wants to just wear In oversized sweater with a skirt. It's like on a completely different direction I have this year of ours set which I don't always like love how these fit and I'm also Not wearing the right underwear with it like literally at all who am I but I don't think it's gonna matter because I think I'm gonna Wear this sweater from free people over it and this sweater I got in way too big of a size I'd love at these sweaters like if you're gonna invest in any cozy sweater This is it. I'll link it below Dom and I got them in college We both got like two or three different colors and we both still have them like after how many closet clean outs But is this gonna look? Like this is the look It's just cozy like I'm not gonna say it's the cutest outfit ever But you guys don't understand like what I'm going through today so this will be it and then obviously my puff bag because I Turn my headphones and stuff in and it's just the best bag ever and I carry literally everything in it This isn't my best outfit ever I'm gonna be honest with you and this is just too big like even with these shorts underneath I move the socks down a little bit as if that like makes a difference and honestly, this is the outfit. It's cozy It's just like going to the mall. I'm gonna do some Christmas shopping tonight Which will be in the next vlog moving on to my morning journaling and reading this is like The one thing besides working out that really just sets my day apart doing morning Pages it helps me so much if y'all are new here. I'll say it very quickly because I say it all the time morning pages is a journaling exercise by Julia Cameron where you wake up Normally you would do it right when you wake up But sometimes I wake up way too early my brain's not even on so I wait until I'm like ready or like after my workout or whatever Normally I worked out at like seven or nine So I'll do it before you open your journal and you write for three pages straight pen to paper You don't take your pen off the paper and you just keep writing and you get everything out of your head It could be about literally anything there with things that come to your mind that you won't even think about things You won't didn't even realize you're bothering you are bothering you It is like the best form of therapy. It's things that like honestly things come out here and I bring it up to my therapist Okay, it's very good. It helps so much with anxiety. It's the best thing ever So I'm gonna do more morning pages and then we're gonna do I'm gonna read the daily stoic Now I flip to December 6th really daily stoic. I will read you the quote Okay, don't behave as if you are Dustin to live forever What's faded hangs over you as long as you live and while you can become good now All right guys, that is it for trying my 5 a.m. Morning routine. I'll give you guys my review Thanks for asking like it is 8.52 And I feel like I've done my entire full morning routine like reading journaling getting ready working out Showering all of that stuff. I feel like I had my breakfast and I'm like ready to go at 9 I can be in the office by 9 like if I was going to an office you guys like I mean this is my office Anyways, and it feels incredible. Really. I think what it's gonna come down to is Like later in the day when I feel exhausted exhausted or like not feeling like you have a social life at night That's really I feel like when I was more extreme with my 5 a.m. Morning routines I lost a lot of other things in my life, but I felt incredible every single morning. So it just depends, you know I'm more of like a 6 a.m. Girl. I will say I feel amazing. I'm so glad I did it also Like look at how handsome he looks right now Thank you literally looks perfect. You guys made it this far comment fits in all caps Would I make it my everyday routine? I don't know not right now because it's like a holiday season But I do feel amazing. I think I'm gonna need to try it for a week and see maybe I'll do that in January Let me know what you guys think I need to get some work done So hope you guys enjoyed today's vlog and I will talk to you guys soon


Today, I would like to introduce the features of machine learning audiometry and some of its advantages over conventional audiometry. Before introducing the audiogram itself, however, I will first review some basic principles of perceptual models and how they are typically estimated. Here we have a basic psychometric function in green, mapping stimulus properties to task performance. In this case, task performance is probability of success. This psychometric function cannot be observed only estimated. Additionally, the values used to fit the model, shown as black circles, cannot be observed and themselves must be estimated. Each circle therefore represents a proportion of success for a particular value of each stimulus property. All of these probabilistic estimates combine to require large amounts of data for estimating the entire psychometric function. This is referred to as the two-parameter model. Alpha is the threshold, beta is the psychometric spread or slope, and the entire function is generally referred to as psi. Three and four-parameter models are sometimes used depending on the application. The result of this type of modeling is fully predictive models capable of providing a probability of any particular outcome, mapping any particular stimulus property to success. Empirical studies have shown that 200 to 500 trials are required to obtain reasonable estimates of these models. This requirement is prohibitive for almost all clinical or even research applications. Fair case methods are a simpler form of threshold estimation. If a subject completes any particular task successfully, the next task becomes easier. If however, a subject fails to complete the task, the next task becomes easier. I don't think that's right. Two, one, go. Today, I would like to introduce the features of machine learning audiometry and some of its advantages over conventional audiometry. Before introducing the audiogram test itself, however, I will first review some basic principles of perceptual models and how they are typically estimated. Here we have a basic psychometric function in green, mapping stimulus property along the horizontal axis to task performance along the vertical axis. In this case, task performance is probability of success. This psychometric function cannot be observed only estimated. Additionally, the values used to fit the model, shown as black circles, also cannot be observed and must be estimated. Each circle represents the proportion of success for a particular value of each stimulus property. All of these probabilistic estimates combine to require large amounts of data for estimating the psychometric function. This form, the psychometric function psi, is referred to as the two-parameter model. Alpha is the threshold, and beta is the psychometric spread or slope of this function. Three and four-parameter models are sometimes used depending on the application. The results of this type of modeling are fully predictive models capable of providing a probability of any particular outcome as a function of any particular stimulus property. Empirical studies have shown that 200 to 500 trials are required to obtain reasonable estimates of these models. This requirement is unfortunately prohibitive for almost all clinical or even research applications. Staircase methods are a simpler form of threshold-only estimation that are quite efficient. If a subject completes any particular task in the sequence successfully, the next task becomes harder. If a subject fails to complete any particular task, however, the next task becomes easier. This simple one-step memory sequence provides a robust estimation procedure. A staircase can be thought of as a one-parameter model. It delivers only the threshold, however. The threshold is not a fully predictive model. In other words, not a generative or probabilistic model, complete model. It only reveals the probability of correct task performance at one input value. The threshold spread or slope are not estimated, but assumptions about those values are used to make the staircase more efficient. The audiogram has two independent variables, unlike the one independent variable psychometric functions we've just seen. These variables are intensity or sound level and frequency. The intensity variable follows all the rules of psychometric function estimation with stimulus properties that we just saw. Frequency however does not. The most common approach to estimating audiograms is not to build more complex models that can accommodate those two types of input variables. Instead, multiple staircase procedures are performed at different frequencies in sequence. The result is not a fully predictive model, but a series of discrete thresholds. While relatively efficient and robust, a major limitation of this procedure is that information cannot be shared effectively. As a result, it is challenging to improve the current methodology further. Here is an example of a conventional audiogram conducted by an audiologist. Note that audiograms are usually depicted with inverted vertical axes. We can see this audiogram take shape with each tone delivery. The series of staircases is obviously suboptimal. Even after we have collected a few responses at 1 kHz, for example, we continue to sample there even though it's clear we know more about the audiogram structure at 1 kHz than at any other frequency. This estimation method provides a relatively incomplete picture of this ear's hearing. Sampling only at a few discrete frequencies. It does not yield a fully predictive model. And possible extensions of this method are limited. The machine learning audiogram, or MLag, is a truly multidimensional estimation method. It uses Gaussian process classification in a Bayesian active learning framework to optimize where to sample over the full input domain, meaning tone intensity and tone frequency. You can see the difference between data acquisition of this model estimation procedure and the last one as so. Despite varying both sound frequency and level simultaneously, threshold estimates converge to values close to those of conventional audiometry in the purple line. This is a Bayesian method, but we have used an uninformative prior belief here to provide a lower bound on efficiency while still allowing estimator accuracy to be quantified. Here we see a few frames of the movie that you just viewed. MLag returns a fully predictive model in less time than conventional audiometry returns a few thresholds only. We can visualize this here as a continuous frequency audiogram that forms along with psychometric spread estimates. Those are shown at 1 kHz in the insets of these panels. This method provides more information than conventional audiometry and takes less time on its own, but the real advantage of this procedure is the new capabilities that MLag makes available for the first time. We will discuss one of several audiometric extensions that we have developed for the rest of the talk. Thresholds with very different thresholds in their two ears can experience cross hearing where tones probing threshold in one ear can be a bone conduction rise above detection threshold for the other ear. In this example, we have audiograms of two ears of one person, and the triangular area indicates tones at risk of cross hearing because their intensity is high relative to the contralateral ear, the contralateral ear's thresholds. Masking noise delivered in the contralateral ear ensures that loud tones do not cross over through bone conduction to activate that ear and then result in a false positive. Conventionally, correct masking is a cumbersome and time-consuming procedure to implement correctly. Dynamically masked MLag, however, learns the right amount of masking in real time. That's what's depicted here. The results of dynamically masked MLag provide similar threshold estimates between conventional and machine learning procedures at considerable time savings. In this study were individuals with a range of hearing profiles, administered both conventional audiometry and dynamically masked MLag. Small differences in thresholds indicate similarity of estimates between the two methods. Dynamically masked MLags also require no longer to complete than masked MLags and in some individuals substantially less time than the conventional audiogram requires to execute. Most individuals in the population have fairly symmetric hearing across both ears, even if they have hearing loss. The machine learning audiogram so quickly converges to threshold that the masking noise is almost always below the contralateral detection threshold for a large proportion of the population. As a result, these individuals do not even know they are experiencing a masked audiogram. For example, symmetric normal hearing individuals and symmetric hearing loss individuals, very few of the contralateral masking noise stimuli are detected by these individuals. Individuals with asymmetric hearing detect the masking noise but have been shown to be able to disregard it in order to indicate detection of the probe tones.  The end result is an audiogram estimation procedure that can deliver hearing thresholds in both ears at once, regardless of the amount of hearing asymmetry in less time than is required for a conventional audiogram. Here, the algorithm optimizes over tone frequency, intensity, and ear simultaneously. The result is that the estimates for both ears can be obtained in about the same time as is required to estimate one ear. MLAG in all its forms can be delivered remotely or in a clinic with clinician supervision. And with that, I would like to thank the large number of collaborators and trainees who have contributed to this work and also to our funding sources. Thank you very much and I'm happy to take questions.


Every single chain in Jesus mighty name. Who's in this body? Who's in this body? What have you done to her? Every demon in the body right now we command you out in Jesus mighty name Out in Jesus mighty name Out in Jesus mighty name Out right now in the name of Jesus Christ Luster right now in the name of Jesus Christ In Jesus name In Jesus mighty name Jesus name I would say I was struggling a lot with my relationships. They would fail I'd go into one relationship after another after another and it was like It was hurting me mentally it was hurting my parents. It was hurting Especially my dad because he was always praying for me and stuff. So I think I was like what's wrong with you? Was there any other area that was affected in your life? Oh, yeah, and I was also experiencing a lot of sexual dreams So when I would watch a movie or something or I would overhear a conversation that wasn't very clean That night I would go to sleep and I would just have extreme dreams of Yeah, and I would wake up in the mornings and I would cry because I would I just had no control over it And I just felt so dirty. I just felt so gross and I just like and as a result I was I kind of felt depressed and sad because I was like Yeah, so how did he how did those dreams affected your everyday life? Um As I said, I would just wake up. I'll just be sad and depressed and I just I wouldn't think straight in a way like I would just be Sighly I would be shut down as well. So so it would affect your emotions, right? Yeah, okay. And so what did you experience during the deliverance? How did you feel? So, um, when we started praying and stuff, uh Vlad said to raise up our fists like this and then once I started doing that and then I've also prayed against almost everything I could but that night I just remembered also Gladys's testimony where she was saying she was having a lot of sexual dreams As a result of a spiritual husband So I was standing there and I started praying against him and that's when I started getting weak And I started breathing abnormally And I was like what's going on, you know, and I realized I could have stopped it there But I didn't I was like, okay, just use Jesus. We gotta, you know, finish this So Uh And then I fell to the ground. I started sobbing Um, yeah How did you feel right after your deliverance? So right after um during it. I was just felt like I knew I was screaming but in my mind I was like praying but in my body. I was just not in control at all And then after I was laid down on the ground I just like this Tremendous peace just like filled my body and my mind And I just felt like a feather. I just felt like I could fly Wow. Wow. This is amazing. Come on. Let's let's put our hands together for Jesus Christ Now, how do you feel right now? Do you continue struggle with those dreams? And what's the difference you see after your deliverance? This is the first week that I've slept so good like without those dreams like Just sleeping like a baby Yeah So from last Wednesday till tonight you had not had any dreams like that No Praise the lord hallelujah The lord deserves all the glory Vera we thank you so much for your deliverance and for what god has done in your life and will be continued the process Of freedom. Can you please share a word of advice for people who might be struggling or they Find themselves in a similar situation? I just want to reach out to the girls who are in this situation. It's not normal for you to have these dreams It's not normal for you to go to one relationship after another one after one and just failed And I just advise do not be afraid to fight against that And just Accept your freedom. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you


Virginia McClam, Gwynne Eccerson, and where are you both from? I'm from Stephenville, North Carolina. So you've come a fair way and you're pretty local. Yes. So what have you learned at convention this year? This is my fifth year straight coming to conventions. I've been a director for two years and I can say the spirit of the people, the attitudes and the willingness to work together and move forward has increased and gotten better and it's very exciting and our leadership is very exciting. Do you feel similar or differently? Very laid back this time. Yeah. So how is it different from previous years? Well, some years we have a lot of squabbling. I've been coming about 25 or 30 years and sometimes it gets real heated discussion and we don't get anything done because everyone's just arguing. So the last two or three years really have been everyone really trying to come together. So what do you think has changed? That's hard to say. It probably starts at the top and I think we've gotten back to our basics of the love for our cutting horses and just thinking about this not being in existence and how much it means to us and doing whatever we need to do to keep the NCHA going. So you're coming away feeling what? Well, I'm excited about our new IT program that we're going to have. We're going to have an archivist now for, I mean there's just thousands and thousands of videos from way back that were real to real. So we're going to have an archivist now that's going to try to get all of that where the historical part, we've really let it go and so now I'm excited about that. That's another thing. There was a little controversy apparently about the amount of money being spent on that but what's your feeling? Is that a good investment? Yes. Absolutely. So everything's in good hands? I think so. I think Jim Brett is doing an awesome job. He has been so easy to work with and is just so professional and he's a fantastic leader for us. I agree with that about Jim Brett. He's made a big difference. I'm excited to get back on the east coast and spread the good news for a change. Kristen York from Wyoming. So you've come a fair way. Why did you decide to come to convention today this weekend? Well, I'm actually the national director from Wyoming. So I'm required. Part of the job description. And what was it that you have discovered here at convention that you found interesting? I think the most interesting part for me is how much change they want to enact. They have a lot of task force and committees starting to look at our governance, to look at our class restructuring. So definitely the wind of change is coming. That could be good or bad in some people's opinion but I think that is the underlying, I guess, thing I take away from this convention. What's the message you'll be taking back to your members? The biggest thing is to make sure that you talk to your directors, talk to the governance task force. They've named all the people. They actually stood around today so that you could ask them questions and talk to them. So the big thing is if you want to see a change, get involved and talk to the people necessary. Anything else that you enjoyed about the convention? The Hall of Fame dinner was fabulous. It's always exciting but last night was a lot of fun. Why so? How is it different to other years? I think the biggest part was the group. Each year is a special group of people. Last year was just a lot of fun and a lot of history. That's the best part. NCHI always has to try to strike a balance between preserving our history but moving forward with an ever-changing world. That's what I always look at at the Hall of Fame because that's our chance to preserve what got us to this point. Deanna Lee from Spokane, Washington. Deanna, why did you come to the NCHI Convention this year? I'm a director for Washington. I'm also a new member of the Long Range Planning Committee. I came here to represent Washington and find out what the rest of the country and NCHI is doing and what our leadership is where we're going. So what were some of the things that you learned that you didn't know before? Well, I learned that our Long Range Planning Committee is very busy at work. NCHI as a whole is moving forward tremendously fast. And I think we have a great organization and it's great to come and visit with everybody and see everybody's viewpoint. Was there anything that your members wanted you to address at the meeting? I think our members want the communication from our convention and our leadership back to them. And July 4th we will present what we learned here and where we're going and how we're going to get there. So that's what our membership was wanting. Well, it sounds like you're coming away with an optimistic feeling. I'm very optimistic. We're growing leaps and bounds and I think it's a great organization.


A funny thing happened when Jimmy Hart joined WCW in the mid-1990s. Some of their wrestlers' entrance themes began to sound awfully familiar, like I'm talking Ice Ice Baby under pressure familiar.  He once let my son touch his megaphone. Uh, that came out wrong. Nonetheless, it should be argued that these songs were in fact shamelessly stolen from the WWE. That being said, I'm Kevin Callis from Wrestling Behind The Themes. And won't you please subscribe? Because here are 10 times WCW and Jimmy Hart ripped off WWE themes. Hulk Hogan's Real American is one of the most recognizable songs in American pop culture history. But when Hogan took his talents to WCW while he was able to bring along the coot-tail riding team of Brutus, the freaking Barber Beefcake and Jimmy Hart, the Hulkster was obviously not allowed to take his entrance theme because of copyright. So Hart hopped into the recording studio probably just outside of Bad Street Atlanta GA and cooked up something real nice for his brother from another mother. Hogan was now American made, thanks to this new tune that was purposely made to mimic the all-American Rick Daringer played original, a shallow imitation to say the least, although the music did rock. The new lyrics were laden with so much cheese to try and hide the fact that the mouth of the South was basically up to no Gouda. Following in the footsteps of the Hulkster to WCW was Randy Savage as he had no desire to retire and transition to a full-time role in commentary per Vince McMahon wanting a younger roster for his new generation era. Instead, the Macho Man quickly became one of WCW's top stars aligning himself with Hogan once again. Now I think we can all agree that Randy Savage had one of the greatest theme songs in wrestling history and I'm not talking about his late career, mid-life crisis, what a match music. But the iconic Pump and Circumstance, seeing as how this tune is in the public domain and free to use, the mouth of the South still decided to remix the sheep out of this classic with a mean electric guitar version which can only be described in two words. Ooooooh yeah. When the aforementioned Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage were feuding with Ric Flair and Big Van Vader during the summer of 1995, the Hulkster began to brag more than usual about some ultimate surprise he would soon unleash upon the wrestling world.   I guess Jimmy Hart forgot to load the spaceship with the rocket fuel because it's crazy how much the Warriors iconic WWE theme and this song sound alike. What's worse is that when the warrior finally did join WCW, he too got saddled with this knockoff version of his original unstable banger. With a career lasting from 1987 to 2004, it's likely that most millennials haven't an inkling of who John Tenta was. But I'll tell you who he wasn't, he wasn't a shark, or a fish, or an avalanche, well technically he was known as avalanche in WCW. It is until the WWE threaten to sue over similarities to John's gimmick of Earthquake. Managed by, you guessed it, Jimmy Hart, Earthquake once famously squashed Hulk Hogan like a bug immediately endearing himself to the Hulkster as a 500 pound man who he could make some money with. Fast forward to one of the many aftershocks of when Hogan jumped to WCW and Big John seized an opportunity to make a lot more guaranteed scratch. Through no fault of his own, the natural disaster that WCW was barely bothered to alter anything about John's previous gimmick, including his Quaker Shake theme song. The self-proclaimed greatest intercontinental champion of all time took his blue suede shoes to WCW in the mid-90s in the hopes of rekindling the success he achieved during the golden era of the WWE. But unfortunately for the Honky Tonk man, WCW's upper management had suspicious minds about Honky and were convinced he was nothing but a hound dog. However, thanks to his close personal friend, Hulk Hogan, asking Easy E. Eric Bischoff to not be so cruel, the Honky Tonk man debuted and received one of Jimmy Hart's laziest theme song reworks ever called Honky Tonk Baby. This WCW theme was basically the same rockabilly diddy he had in the WWE and even had the exact same lyrics just swapped around a little, cool, cocky, and really really bad. Honky lasted four months in WCW before being returned to sender Address Unknown. The Nasty Boys certainly lived up to their name as a pair of anti-social punk brawlers. I'm not gonna call them wrestlers because they were sloppy in the ring and only lasted in the business for so long because they had good friends helping them out, like of course their manager, Jimmy Hart. From a musical standpoint, Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags originally benefited from the 1986 hit song Nasty by its Janet, Miss Jackson if you're nasty, but licensed music once again took control and the Nasty's had to find another nasty groove to strut their stuff to which led the Mouth of the South to create their awesomely unique theme full of chicken hip hop scratches that welcomed one at all to pity city and their WCW theme somehow keeps the same beat. This time, layering in electric guitars and the boys behind the mic singing Nasty Sensation. It really hurts my heart to think back on Bret Hart in WCW. The Hitman had dominated the WWE in the 1990s, but soon became just another well-paid wrestler that WCW had no clue what to do with, debuting a month removed from the infamous Montreal Screwjob at Starcade 97. The Hitman wasn't booked to actually wrestle, but instead serve as the guest referee for a match between Larry Zabisco and Eric Bischoff. Heartbreaking stuff here, and musically speaking, WCW and Jimmy Hart also came up with a bizarro world Peter Frampton sounding piece of entrance music called Hitman in the House, which would have better suited a Hitman rip-off like Bret Hart with two T's. Obviously, WCW couldn't legally use Bret's heart attack WWE theme, but in true fashion they picked a song that was not the best theme there is, not the best theme there was, and definitely not the best theme there ever will be. It's me, it's me, it's that B-U-Z, and that was Bret Armstrong's feeble attempt at imitating his younger brother when he played a second-rate stoner called Buzzkill. Not a shame too, because out of all four of the Armstrong brothers, Brad was considered to be the best in-ring performer, even during his days as the goddamn Candyman, the brainchild of one Vince Russo, who basically had half the brain of Sid Vicious. Armstrong was literally told on TV that he better call somebody like his little brother for a gimmick, which was WCW trying to be hip and cool, but just coming off as, pardon the pun, a Buzzkill dude. And while the road DOG was busy getting down with DX, wouldn't you know it that poor Brad was walking out to a copycat theme built around this New Age Outlaws infamous opening guitar riff. In 1999, Dusty Rhodes took his rightful place back home in WCW, reuniting with his son Dustin in a war against Jeff Jarrett and Ric Flair. Later, the heel duo had done several skits mocking the American Dweem. Now the Rhodes family more than held their own in a grudge-matched victory over double J and the Nature Boy at the final WCW pay-per-view ever called Greed, with the special stipulation being that the losing team would receive, wait for it, a stink face. Now that's bad, but not nearly as bad as the mouth of the South's creation of this new theme for Dusty called quite simply American Dream, which is such a blatant rip-off of Dusty's WWE common man boogie that Hart should have been sued and stink-faced simultaneously. The son of former WWE Champion Stan Demand Stasiak, Sean Stasiak never quite took off the way other second-generation superstars like Bret Hart or Randy Savage did, probably because his career consisted of less-than-perfect gimmicks in the WWE, like the dim-witted hunk for the pretty mean sisters known as Meat or as a clumsy goofball who claimed to hail from Planet Stasiak. But WCW being WCW, perfect Sean, or is it perfect Sean? I don't know. Either way, this Kurt Hennig knockoff has gotta be one of the worst puns ever. Still, this gimmick was abandoned before too long, which meant so was this Jimmy Hart rip-off version of Jim Johnston's classical theme for the real Mr. Perfect.


Hello everyone, welcome back to our channel. I hope you all are safe and sound. You must have used a chatbot at least once in your lifetime to ask a question on website or maybe just to have some fun. Today, we will make one of our own. We will first enter few questions and their answer and then when the chatbot runs, it will recognize your speech and convert it into text using Pictoblock's speech recognition extension and then answer your questions accordingly. Hello, I am Abhi, your friend. What is your name? Jennifer. Welcome Jennifer. What's on your mind Jennifer? Same as I was yesterday. What's on your mind Jennifer? Pre-requisites are a laptop or a computer with the latest version of Pictoblock's downloaded, a good internet connection and a camera. You can download the all new Pictoblocks from the link given in the description box below. Let's begin by adding the artificial intelligence and the text to speech extension. Open Pictoblocks. Click on board and select evide. You need to keep two things in mind while working with this extension. First, that your computer is connected to the internet. Second, you need to login into Pictoblock's account to use it. Click on the add extension button. Choose artificial intelligence extension. Next, let's add the text to speech extension. This extension lets you convert the audio file into the text message. Click on the add extension button again and scroll down till you find the text to speech extension. Let's begin by adding Abhi, the sprite which will be the character of our chatbot. Click on choose a sprite button. From the library, choose Abhi. Delete to be sprite by clicking on the delete button. Now let's add a good backdrop. Click on the add backdrop button and choose boardwalk from the library. You can use any backdrop of your choice. Select Abhi sprite. As we want to execute the program every time the green flag is clicked. Place the when flag clicked add block into the scripting area from the events palette. Now to get familiar with our chatbot, we will introduce Abhi to our user and ask for the name of a user to add a personalized touch to it. Thus, get a speak block from the text to speech block palette. This block converts any text written in the white space to audio form to be played on our PC or laptop speaker. Right, hello, I am Abhi your friend to introduce Abhi to your user. Again, add a speak block and ask for the user's name. Right, what is your name into the space given? This block will not store the user's name for us. Thus for storing user's name, we need to add one more block. Get recognized speech for 5 seconds in English block from the artificial intelligence palette. This block records audio and sends it to the web to decode and convert the speech into the text form. Its result, that is the user's name in our case, is stored into the speech recognition result block. Now to use the name in further communication, we will store it in a variable. Go to the variables tab. Click on make a new variable and make a string type variable named name to store the name of the user. Get a set variables block from the variables palette and choose name from the drop down. Add speech recognition result block into the space given. Now to make our chatbot welcome user, get a speak block. Put a join block inside it from the operator's palette. Write welcome into the first space of the join block and add the variable name in the second space of the join block. To continue the chat with our chatbot, we will add a forever block from the controls palette below the speak block. Now we will first prompt the user to ask a question. To do so, get a speak block and add a join block in it. We will always add a join block to make Abby say the user's name. Write what's on your mind into the first space and the name variable into the second space. Now to again recognize the user's questions, we will add the recognize speech for 10 seconds in English block to record whatever the user is speaking. Chatbot normally answers the predefined questions fed in it. Thus we will be adding a few questions which if matched chatbot can reply with the respective answers. Now get an if else block from the controls palette to check if recognized speech matches the questions. Inside the if arm, we will add an equal to operator block to check the results. Now into the first space of the equal to block, place the speech recognition results block and type in the question that is who am I in the second place. We will want our chatbot to reply as ur and the name of the user. Thus get a speak block from the text to speech palette into the if portion and add a join block inside it from the operator's palette. Add the text ur in the first space of the join block and add the variable name into the second space. Here I'll be adding a few simple questions you can add the questions and answers according to your choice. Similarly, we will be adding other questions too. Duplicate the if else arm and place it below the else arm. We will edit out the content with appropriate questions and their answers. You can add in as many questions as you want. Apart from playing around with simple questions and answers, you can even add some special features to your chatbot such as celebrate birthday, crack jokes, make it play a song and much more. We will be making one such custom event for birthday. Duplicate the if else block as we did previously and change the question portion with the statement, it is my birthday. Now when the speech matches, we will change the backdrop to match the theme. Thus add the party backdrop from the add backdrop option. Paste the change backdrop to block from the looks palette and choose party from the drop down. Now to wish the user get a speak block and add a join block inside it. Write happy birthday into the first space and drag and drop the name reporter block into the second space. Now to play a birthday song, go to the sounds tab and click on choose the sound button. Add the birthday sound. Come back to the script. From the sounds block palette, add place sound until done block below the speak block and choose birthday from the drop down. Now let's add the default case. If the recognized result does not match with any predefined questions then we will make Abby say sorry I do not understand it yet. Add a speak block into the last else portion of the question and write sorry I do not understand it yet. Now to make chatbot look more realistic, we will be adding one small script. This script will make the character that is Abby to move its face in hands to make it look like she is talking. First drag and drop the wind flag clicked hub block and add a forever block below it. Now from the looks palette, get a next costume block. Now to make costume switch visible, place a weight block from the controls palette and add wait time of 0.5 seconds. With this your script is ready. Click on the flag button to start chatting with the chatbot. You can notice the recognition time by looking at the vertical line below your video. Welcome Jennifer, what's on your mind Jennifer? Who created you? Someone at Stemphilia, what's on your mind Jennifer? It is my birthday. Happy birthday Jennifer. Share with us your interactions with your chatbot in our victim blocks community on Facebook. Also if you like this video, subscribe to Stemphilia and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Bye bye, stay safe.


Mr. Chairman, the ITU Secretary-General, Mr. Hulinsau, elected ITU official, Excellencies, distinguished heads of delegations, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honour for me to make this statement on behalf of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at this very important WTDC 17. First of all, I would like to highly appreciate all the effort and hard work of the ITU in organising this high-level, very important conference. This is really a very good opportunity for us to learn and to exchange experiences on the implementation of ICT strategies and on solutions to use ICT to achieve the sustainable development goals. Nowadays, the explosive development of ICT has made such rapid and deep changes to the society and to the economy. One can easily find the very strong impact of ICT on all aspects of our lives, our workings and our social relationships. And that happens at all scales, global, national, regional, organisational and individual. And in this context, we strongly believe that we have to put ICT in the heart of our SDG strategies. And in fact, Vietnam has been making every effort to make the best use of ICT to create new driving forces for sustainable and inclusive growth. We are focusing on the following priorities. Firstly, we promote ICT applications and services in public areas such as public governance and public health. In two years from 2014 to 2016, according to the United Nations e-government index, Vietnam has improved its e-government performance and made the leap from middle e-government development index to high values. In public health area, we succeeded in establishing a database of health insurance, covering approximately 99% of population. And this opens up the path to the wide use of electronic insurance cut. Secondly, we need to invest a lot in HRD. The shortage of digital skills is the biggest challenge of developing countries in this digital transformation. So international cooperation in HRD led by ITU, namely ITUD plays a very important role. Thirdly, as an agriculture country and among the ten most impacted by climate change, we need to promote e-agriculture. And our government and prime minister emphasize constantly that priority must be given to e-agriculture. Fourthly, we started smart city initiatives and we think that this will create new ICT market opportunity and new opportunities for international cooperation. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, in this all-interconnected and integrated world, Vietnam strongly believes that cooperation, mutual assistance between nations is key for success. And from outside, we are always ready and eager to cooperate with other members to jointly address common ICT challenges. In addition, we do wish to make further contribution to the ICT community through our presence at the Radio Regulation Board. In concluding, I would like to express our sincere thanks to the ITU, the ITU Secretary General, and the ITU staff who have been making continued efforts to connect members to enhance mutual understanding and to provide available assistance to members. I would also like to thank for all the great hospitality extended by the host nation of the Angentina Republic who helped to make this conference possible and meaningful. Finally, I would like to wish you all good health, success, and happiness. Thank you for your kind attention.


ne we did stick that uh riz let me up to be uh what are they called announcer yo you could pay me a million dollars and i probably would not announce soccer i i don't know if i could do that y'all would not want me to do that either i want to say go lasso everyone that will do it for the daytime breaks here thanks again so much for getting everything filled up we do appreciate it there is the link hold on there we go there's the link for the break schedule again force will be live here starting at five p.m be sure to grab those spots up soon because they are going fast um let's do a quick review of what he's got um so the uh number 26 on the select one box random pack style down to six that is the only one of those left for the night uh he's got some inception baseball full case break random division spots left uh only three teams left in each tier one baseball pick your team case uh 11 to go in the mega triple case mlb again that is a case of diamond icons definitive in tier one huge baseball break there five to go in bundesliga case break random team all of his h2 optics are sold out um for tonight and then three total breaks with spots left for football chronicle six box a random team a three box mosaic hobby with only six to go and then going big to end the night tonight mega dual case nfl uh eminence and flawless so definitely check all of those out only limited spots remain those will go quick um personals are also about halfway full so don't wait too long on that um and last thing i'd like to mention again please please go subscribe to our new youtube channel latin baseball breaks matt will be live monday morning doing those again strictly baseball over there uh we will still have baseball over here so no worries um but that one will be strictly baseball um he'll he's got a whole uh pick your team breaks listed for monday again that's also on uh they are listed on the website latin sports cards dot com under the break schedule matt has his own separate little tab now under that break schedule should be like matt's mlb schedule or something like that um matt's mlb break schedule so definitely check that out show him support we also have a um dedicated instagram to that as well lsc baseball so definitely go check those out like subscribe um we would greatly appreciate it that'll do it for me everyone have a fantastic rest of your friday a fantastic weekend and i will see you back sunday daytime personals all right have a great one everyone