I tagged myself to answer the following questions with one word (best regards to Jean has been shopping 
)
1. Where is your cell phone? tray
2. Your hair? blonde
3. Your mother? Lubov
4. Your father? Leonid
5. Your favorite food? meat
6. Your dream last night? work
7. Your favorite drink? tea
8. Your dream/goal? emigration
9. What room are you in? office
10. Your hobby? japanese
11. Your fear? depth
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? beach
13. Where were you last night? courses
14. Something that you aren’t? evil
15. Muffins? yes
16. Wish list item? house
17. Where did you grow up? Donetsk
18. Last thing you did? translated
19. What are you wearing? trousers
20. Your TV? none
21. Your pets? biting
22. Friends? far
23. Your life? joyful
24. Your mood? curious
25. Missing someone? Alenka
26. Vehicle? feet
27. Something you’re not wearing? suit
28. Your favorite store? any
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? weeks
32. Your best friend? hubby
33. One place that I go to over and over? Yaremche
34. One person who emails me regularly? Chaika
35. Favorite place to eat? Panda
I am totally indifferent to jewellery. I never understood why anybody would be concerned about those trinkets. I never could spend even a small amount for them, I couldn’t appriciate earrings with diamonds presented to me by my parents. I just couldn’t see any practical use of them.
But as I wrote more than a year ago in my MySpace blog I was tempted by the Frey Wille production! I saw their advertisment in a magazine (I do not remember in which already) and fell in love at once 
I wanted to have my wedding ring of Frey Wille but we couldn’t efford it then with all other wedding expenses. So I had an ordinary ribbed gold ring which I planned to replace “as soon as at once”
Last Friday I didn’t intended to buy anything that expensive, I didn’t plan to buy anything at all But I wanted to give the eye to these amazing little things once more. Guess how it ended 
My Frey Wille ring
Woohoo! I was so happy! After several days of wearing it I’m asking myself ”Did I need it that badly?” But it’s so awesome that I do not regret 
It’s been quite a long time (10 days) since my last post. To say the truth I just didn’t have much time. I was quite a busy bee Work, courses, assignements for courses, Japanese *memo to me – update Japanese page* have been eating my time.
Some of my assignements for composition:
1) My finished dynamic flower. I thought to make it with stenciling as Wan Ting advised, but I failed it. So it is just drawn and painted with acrylic paint. It’s a pity that the scanned version doesn’t show its texture. I fell in love with acrylic paint
Dynamic flower
Our teacher liked it, she said that I really transmitted dynamic.
2. The assignment was to draw express any emotion or situation using: shapes, lines, colors,etc. I was in a bad mood doing it! And the picture appeared to be “boiling”. You see the left part is like release of energy and the right side is like pressure.
boiling
She didn’t like it because left and right part lived their own lives. She asked me what united them and I couldn’t tell.
3. This task was to depict textures in graphic. I think I’ve done it well. The teacher liked it too
Textures
4. The assignment was to take two different figures: one should be soft, closed and another should be agressive, open; and find a seamless combination of them on a surface. I came out with this.
Orange on grey
This is application. It was interesting to check what people see in this composition Some saw apple, some house and even kettle.
5. The task was to make color “palette” with major colors (red, yellow, blue) and those that produced with mixing major colors (orange, green, purple); show contrast, discordant and nuance colors. And again I’ve done it with acrylic paints.
Palette
I mixed colors myself and I was kinda proud of myself because I’ve never done it before and even didn’t know how to do it .
6. This task was also about work with paints and color. We should paint 12-level gradation with water paints. I need to tell that I do not like water paints at all, I’m even afraid of them. I never can foresee what color it turns out on paper. But she explained and showed and I tried and it turned out that I was the best at our class! Isn’t it sweet?
Gradation
I didn’t finish it yet though. We used the glazing technique. First you should make a solution of a color you like, then place a drop of it on paper, now make a gorizontal line of this drop not touching paper with your brush. Then down the rest of the drop a little and make another gorizontal line. And so on. I’m not sure if I explained it clearly
7. This assignment was about center of the composition. I combined it also with symmetric/asymmetric task. I think I’ve done it well. I like it at least I was moody then, so it’s quite gloomy.
Gloomy creation
And the last!
I’ve got the ground for my project. Everyone has their project to finish till the end of courses. I and another person chose park. We’ve got the same park topographic plan for Pavlenkovsky park in Poltava city. It exists and it’s been reconstructed already. So here it is:
Topographic plan
I have to keep all buildings and constructions like skate field, I can change paths but I have keep in mind that this park exists for a long time and people made regular directions. But I can pretend that there are no trees and plant them on my own plan. So it’s half real, half hypothetical project.
I have some ideas already I will share them when I picture them on the project. It looked awfull to me at first, but more I think, more I like it. I wake up at morning thinking about this park and go to bed thinking of the park
Wish me good luck
Stryzhavka is a small quiet village in Ukraine on the border of Kiev and Cherkass regions. We spend two days there last week. Originally we planned to stay there for three days but we couldn’t make it out.
Let’s see:
- no heating in a damp house, the only method to heat a little was to fire a furnace
- toilet is outside, without a door
- wash stand is outside
- water can be taken from a well only, no taps
It wasn’t too cold anyway and we spent really good time there.
Konstantin’s grandmother lived there and now it’s just a summer house for his cousins.
The first thing that you have to do in a such place is to fire a furnace. There were also two “grubas” (sorry couldn’t find a translation). Gruba is a built-in chimney of a wall width with an orifice in it to put there wood for firing up. Couldn’t find a picture of it. But both grubas didn’t work. One had cracks in it and fumes penetrated inside and another one didn’t have draught. So, only the furnace left to us to heat the house. And it didn’t help much. But it was fun to watch Konstantin working on the problem
Furnace
So we were wearing the same outfit inside as outside.
Here’s a well from which we took water to wash, make tea, brush teeth, etc. It’s the only source of water there.
Well
What is a vacation without shashliks? *one of the recipes is under the link* It was funny! Fire didn’t want to flame up. And we thought that we will end making a steak of the meat with a pan. But we found some diesel fuel and made that fire! Modern people couldn’t lit a fire without fuel How our grannies dealt with it?!
Fire for shashliks
What else? Harvesting! that that were not harvested before
Look what I’ve found:
Super small watermelon
It wasn't tasty, but very beautiful! So reddish!
Our watermelon harvesting. Pepper is hiding behind
A lot of apples. The most delicious I've tasted as far as I remember!
Another thing we found was an abandoned boat with the grass in it.
Boat
Made photos of ourselves with the boat as background.
Me
Konstantin
As the boat wasn’t tied up we found it drifting another day. It was foggy then.
Drifting boat
Just a view from the place we washed our hands, faces, brushed our teeth. You know there is something special when you watch the river brushing your teeth. It’s so romantic! It’s so marvelous having a house standing on a river bank
Gloomy morning
Just photos of surroundings without comments.
I know I may be annoying with these landscape design courses
Our last class was about composition. As a result I spent an amount for my “creative instruments” yesterday. I bought: water colours, acrylic paint, compasses, paper for applications, albums for painting, etc. But this is not the point!
I have 16 assignements to make till next Tuesday! Funny thing! I spent the whole evening yesterday making my imagination work and drawing this:
Guess what it is
It’s a dynamic flower
And the assignment was:
a) draw a natural form of any flower or leaf, or something.
b) stylize it and transform, make of it an idea (kind flower, angry flower, etc); consider silhouette of a stain and emphasis of lines.
So, I took the photo of hollyhock, we took another day
,
drew an open form of it and started stylize it. Consider that have never attended to drawing classes or anything, so I’m not really getting what is stylizing or transforming. Maybe I “transformed” it to much! But I wanted to make dynamic flower, flying into direction. So after several small sketches
I came out with a draft shown above.
It doesn’t look much like flower. I would draw shadows to make it more recognizable but my assignmemt is to make a “stain”, not draw a picture.
My idea is next: I want to paint a sheet of paper with some acrylic colour (maybe red as I tried it above), then carve a form of a paper that would correspond to the colour of my painted sheet, and carve a little bigger form of black paper. So, I would have black outline of the silhouette.
What would recomend? How to improve my flower?
Any comment would be highly appriciated!
Last Saturday we had outside landscape design class. It took place in the Botanical garden of Fomin.
This is the fisrt part of our class, I couldn’t convert all photos in time as we had a short vacation in Stryzhavka village (it was awesome and it’s a subject to another blog ).
Let’s start of the entrance. Here is a canadian spruce of conical form. Our teached made an introduction about latin names, Russian names, etc, etc. I do not see a point of repeating it Age of these trees is for about 50 years. It was really good that our teached actually planted these trees twenty years ago. So he could tell us interesting thinsg about it. Do you see those gaps in “chevelure” of the trees? It’s because of a net tick.
These plants are good to cover ground.
Our second lesson was dedicated to inroduction into pedology (soil science). It was led by the ex top dendrologist in Kiev and it was awesome! Of course as many of famous and successful person he was all about self-admiration, but it can be forgiven
The lesson was built on conversation basis and I liked it! I made notes of what I thought was interesting and useful.
So, the first thing that should be analyzed: chemical composition of the soil we have on our land. The major important chemical elements are: N (azote), P (phosphor), K (kalium). Soil samples must be sent to laboratories. But we can make our preliminary analysis looking at plants that are growing on the lot.
1) lack of N: leaves are small, have yellow or palegreen color
2) lack of P: young leaves are small, have grey-blue or blue color
3) lack of K: lower leaves are yellow and dead. Leaves that have dictyodromous venation are wrinkled, and those that have liner venation become wavy
The next important parameter of soil is acidity level (pH). You do not have to apply to professional labarotaries, it’s enough to use litmus paper. The best soil is neautral or slightly acid. But of course different plants may prefer different soil.
Over 7pH is alcaline condition. Alcaline soil declines accessibility of some necessary elements by plants. It can be improved by adding some saltpeter, or slight dilution of hydrogen nitrate, or even by lemon juice.
Under 7pH is acid condition. Over 5pH it’s not very harmful, but roots in the soil inder 4pH are being burnt. It can be improved with lime hydrate.
Consistence of soil is very importance factor also. Very few plants can live healthy on “heavy” soil. A lot of methods of improving it exist. We can add some peat, compost or coarse sand if soil, for ex., isclayed.
There are three rules of plants nutrition and soil:
1) Rule of returning everything to soil (it’s about compost, ash, etc). Plants should be returned to soil.
2) Rule of minimum (it’s about limitation factors). There are a lot of factors that influence on plants (light, water, chemical composition, etc), and lack of any of them is limiting.
3) Rule of irreplaceability of growing factors. None of factors (see above) can be replaced by another one.
I’m keeping these “Classes of landscape design” blogs simle as it is kind of summary for me. But maybe someone will find it helpful too.
Maybe it’s not news anymore but I just found out.
While reading Inhabitat about the new park to be in Singapore I stumbled across the “The Solar Supertree” conception.
Solar Supertree is a device that functionates on photosynthesis principle, just like trees. It absorbs outside air and then under thermodynamic pressure combines the toxic elements in the air with water, that is pumped out to sewers.
Nice, isn’t it?
Moreover inventors claim that it can replace 1200 trees. Not literaly, of course It can proccess as much air as 1200 trees. The device gets rid of up to 25% of atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide and eliminates harmful germs from the air.
Isn’t it wonderful? Yes, it is!
Links of the topic: Greendiary, Ecowordly
But thinking of the subject I see the following “flaws” of the concept:
1) Toxic water that pumped out into sewers. Can our present sewers accept the amounf of water? What about water pollution?
2) The Supertree may really replace trees in our cities if it spreads. :( There will not be excuses to keep parks in cities where land is ridiculously expensive. I really can imagine that it can come to real in Kiev, for examlpe.
3) It eliminates harmful germs into the water. Water pollution is the first issue in my list. The question is if it eliminates also “good” germs and bacteria. How does it identify if it is bad or not?
These are the issues I noticed so far. Maybe you see more?
What is your opinion?
How would you like to carry a pocket book “Theory of sexuality” by Sigmund Freud with you? Or, let’s say, antisemitic opus of Nietzsche?
We were at the supermarket when Konstantine turned my attention to a basket with pocket books. I am book fetishist and spend an amount for them every month. How could I be left behind of pocket books? No way Books were of really great quality with lather cover, thick pages and illustrations. Of course there were typical poetic pocket books, except Freud and Nietzsche. But I bought “Aphorisms” of Napoleon. Why not?
"Aphorisms" of Napoleon
Recently I bought two more books.
“Three men in a boat” by Jerome K. Jerome. I wanted this book badly!!! I’ve read it once translated into Russian and I wanted an original. I asked several times in a book store where we buy English books usually and they didn’t have it. Finally they had it last time.
“Jerome K’ Jerome’s hilarious story of what is probably the worst holiday in literature has an air of delightful nostalgia and is still laugh-aloud funny more than one hundred years after it was first published”
“Attack of unsinkable rubber ducks” by Christopher Brookmyre. What a name! Ha! I just started to read it, I’m on 14 page and it’s quite interesting and addicting. To say the truth I bought it because of it’s name And I didn’t came to the point yet to understand what this book is about.
” … But this was before he found himself in the more compromising position of being not only dead himself, but dead with an exclusive still of file … ”
Sounds promising, doesn’t it?
"Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks"; by Christopher Brookmyre, "Three men in a boat" by Jerome K. Jerome
What are the books you bought recently?
Yesterday I had my first class of landscape design courses.
First I need to tell why I decided to take these courses. And I really do not know why :) I’m tired of my present job and I do not see a point to start seek for another one, because it will be the same or similar. And I want something brand new for me. I always was interested in landscape design. The only problem that I had no education in this field. So last Wednesday I undertook a serious step – I started to seek landscape design courses and sent several e-mail requesting some information.
And as result I had my first class yesterday. The whole course will take three months, two times a week (Wednesday and Friday), three hours each class. It will cost for about 200 USD. It can be paid partially. I paid a half now.
To say the truth I was really frustrated after the lesson. You know why? Seven people will attend these classes and they either had some background in contiguous spheres or wanted to creat something for their own gardens.
1. Middle aged woman. She is agriculturist and a passionate artist. She always had a dream to be a landscape designer and she think that these courses will give a chance. Also she has a land where she want realize her creations. So, she has a goal.
2. Young woman, she has ecological education and want to combine being ecologist and designer.
3. Middle aged man. He has the most vast experience among us. He is a welder, a forger and a gardener. He KNOWS what he wants to get from these lessons.
4. Young man. He is biologist. It seemed to me that he knew what he was doing there even less than me. But he has strong knowledges.
All above persons connected to earth by one or another way.
5. Misterious woman. She didn’t tell anything except she didn’t have any relations to landscape occupation. But she has a land and she wants to gain enough knowledges to make it beautiful.
6. Brisk woman. She is accountant and she also has a land and wants to put it in order.
7. I felt myself like “What am I doing here? I will never be able to make a project of design!”
So, the first lesson was a prelude and it’s purpose was to let us know what landscape design is, what we will learn. It was quite boring. You know, I really do not see a point to pay so much time to SUCH theory. It was one of the reasons why I didn’t joined University programm. Our lecturer was really fascinating though
Ok, so what I found out:
- landscape design is tightly connected to the state building standarts, so it should be the first what we need to obtain. I downloaded them from the Internet already
- topo-scheme is necessary to start any design
Sample of topo-scheme
I have no idea how to read it!!! Hope we will learn it soon! No, wait! I think I’m getting it!
- smaller territory is harder in terms of landscape design. I didn’t get why yet.
- drawing skills and creative mind are the most important things
- any project begins with the wind rose
Wind rose for Kiev: year, January, July
Do you know what is the wind rose for your place?
Btw as I’m writing this I become more confidence in myself. I think that I will succeed
If you know somebody who blogs about landscape design, please give me a link. Thank you.
