During the past decade, Harry Potter books have captured the hearts and imaginations of children and adults alike, around the world. The beautiful and whimsical cover art beckons the reader into the magical world of Harry Potter. The fantasy, fairytale look invites the
bookstore browser to pick up the book and take a look inside. The seven-book series is the consummate underdog drama. The author, J.K. Rowling, doesn’t paint a cliched tale that is easily forgotten. With films being made of every book, readers still prefer the Harry Potter book in printed form. 

Unfortunately, the practice of reading is not promoted as vigorously as in earlier years. Putting a Harry Potter book in a child’s hand can open up previously unexplored doors of their imagination. All children have natural curiosity, and the Harry Potter book series is an adventure in creativity and exploration of the world of fantasy.

The Harry Potter books are the poster child of fantasy story fun. Most kids eagerly await the release of a new book, simply because the story is such enchanting fantasy.

Don’t be fooled because the Harry Potter books are marketed as children’s books. They’re almost as popular with adults, who find the plot lines both unique and unexpected.
 
Following the life of the young wizard boy Harry Potter, the books   are reminiscent of J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, with  similarly complex plots. Harry Potter has become an icon of the underdog of the twenty first century.  

The story goes like this. When only a baby, an evil wizard named Voldermort killed Harry’s parents, and at the same time, left a lightning-shaped mark on his forehead. At age 12, Harry is granted a temporary yearly escape from his Aunt and Uncle. A great giant tells Harry that he is a wizard, as were his parents. He needs to attend the magical school of Hogwarts in order to gain the knowledge necessary for full-fledged wizardom.  When he arrives at Hogwarts,   he soon makes friends with Hermonie Granger, a witch, and Ron Weasly, a ginger-haired wizard. In the school, he must contend with previously unknown dangers and trials, such as a magic wand which seems to have its own will. Hogwart teachers also participate in conspiracies.

The seemingly endless labyrinth of chambers and rooms at the Hogwarts school seem to symbolize all the many facets of our own minds. Every new encounter holds a secret or lesson, showing realities that we may not have wanted to know, but needed to see.

If you haven’t read a Harry Potter book, give one of them a look. You may just get hooked on this fascinating fantasy series.

I have always had this problem with bookstores. You see, I love books, but I can never keep my reading list in my head. When I go to a bookstore, I always forget which books I want to buy. I usually think of them later, but by then it is always too late. I will be back at home. That’s why I enjoy purchasing books online so much!

If you’ve never purchased books online, you do not know what you’re missing out on. Not only can you save a lot of money when you purchase books online, but you can also find books that you would not be able to find otherwise. A lot of people are scared to purchase online books because they think that their credit card information might be stolen, but in reality there is nothing to worry about. In this day and age, encryption is so widespread that it is very unlikely any personal information will be stolen from you. You’re perfectly safe when you purchase books online.

Before I ever decided to purchase online books, I anticipated one serious drawback that prevented me from trying it. I figured that if you purchase books online, you have no way to get feedback about the literature that you are reading. When you buy books in person, you can talk to the sales clerk and ask about other books in the same genre, or by the same author. But when you purchase books online, how do you get any information? Even if you like a book, there is no good way to get a recommendation for another one in a similar vein.

It turns out that I was wrong. Many online book stores will tell you what other books are popular with readers who like the book that you are buying. When you purchase books online, these bookstores look in a great big catalog of information. They can identify you by your taste in literature, and suggest a whole reading list for you! It really is quite interesting. Best of all, readers can submit reviews of books that they purchased online for other customers to examine. Once you start to purchase books online, you will never go back to the old way of doing things. It is just too convenient to be able to purchase books from the comfort of your own house! Soon, I think it will replace book stores altogether.

Our society has changed greatly in how they regard on the road safety. We are a much more mobile society now. Gone are the days when people travel less than ten miles from home to work. Many people commute for several hours a day either by public transit or their personal cars. With the added time and distance that we spend in our vehicles we need to be safety minded.

When I was a child I remember standing in the front seat between my parents so that I could see out through the wind shield. Today children are secured in the back seat in car seats. I have found one of the most complicated pieces of equipment I have ever encountered in the infant car seat. I had to drive three hours to pick up a three day old infant that had been abandoned by her mother. I took an intern that was working in the social service agency with me at the time. We picked up an infant car seat from the public health office and started on our way. We thought that we would be able to figure out how to secure the infant car seat once we arrived at the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and were thoroughly checked through security. We were escorted to the nursery and met with the maternity ward nurses. It seems that they could tell by looking at the intern and me that we had very limited experience with babies. They asked if we had brought an infant car seat for the ride home. We explained that it was in the vehicle. The nurse asked if we had safety foam bumpers along to secure the infants head. She could tell by the blank looks we were giving her that we did not have them along. She offered to accompany us to the parking lot to secure the baby in the infant car seat. It took nearly fifteen minutes to secure the car seat in the proper position. The nurse then placed foam tubes around the baby’s head so that it would be supported.

The intern and I took turns riding in the back seat with the infant to make sure she was alright. We took her to a foster home that specializes in the car of infants. We gave her the instructions that the hospital had given us and then we left to return the agency vehicle and infant car seat. As we were leaving we mentioned that it would probably take us an hour to get the seat unhooked. The foster mom opened the back door and had the seat unlatched in less than a minute. She said that it is something that you get used to. I think it will be a long time before the intern or I volunteer to pick up an infant again. We both ended the day feeling incompetent when it came to dealing with infant car seats.

When I first bought my 1977 Ford truck, I thought that I would have my work cut out for me. It was a repo Ford truck which I got at a government auction. It did not look to be in the best shape. I was aware that the 1977 Ford F150 was a good, solidly made truck, but even still I was a bit discouraged by the appearance. It had rust spots, paint chips, dents and dings. It only cost me a few hundred dollars, but I figured I would have to pay hundreds more just to get it working right. Was I mistaken!

I had a friend who had been touting the value of 1977 Ford trucks for years, and I finally gave in to him. He was at the auction with me, you see, and he was the one who prompted me to buy the vehicle. I looked at him like he was crazy the time, but he insisted. Now I’m glad that he did.

Fixing the body was a lot of work, but repairing the truck was no sweat. There is very little repair that needed to be done to the 1977 Ford truck, and the repairs that were needed were easy to make. One thing that is great about my 1977 ford truck is that it is so easy to work on. In general, newer cars are much more difficult to work on. Many of them have smaller engine compartments, computer controlled parts, and a layout that makes it very difficult to get inside. But when you are working on an old machine like a 1977 ford truck, it is no problem to get to any part of the engine you need to. The layout is so simple and straightforward!

Of course, the 1977 Ford truck has its downsides as well. First of all, parts are more expensive and harder to come by. If you’re not into working on your own vehicles, I highly recommend buying something newer. It just is not worth it if you are not going to do your own work. Besides that, the gas mileage is not very good. If you buy a 2006 Ford truck, you will get a vehicle which is quicker, more powerful, and has better fuel economy. All of these factors mean that you should think very carefully before you buy an old car or truck. It can end up as either the best or worst purchase you make all year.

If you talk to any of the men in my family, they will tell you that they will only buy American cars. This is something they won’t reconsider, and it doesn’t matter what you say about it, though I have never thought to try to talk them out of it. Some of them are mechanics, and they tell me that getting parts for some cars that are not American made is hard. They also claim that if you want a car that runs well, won’t rust out early, and will last a long time, you have to avoid foreign made automobiles and buy from your own country.

The problem with this is that you may have a hard time finding cars anymore that can be called American cars. Factories are closing down, and parts are coming from all around the world. However if you get American cars with parts made elsewhere, you can be pretty sure you’ll be able to get the parts rather easily. Things have changed though, and it’s not nearly as hard as it used to be to get any part of any car. Most mechanics today can fix almost any car too, and that has a lot to do with computer technology. There are some diagnostic machines you can hook right up to an engine and the computer will tell you what is wrong with the car.

Perhaps the love of American cars in my family came from their upbringing. Though most people don’t talk about it openly, intolerance of other races and nationalities is something that has never gone away, though I think with every generation humans become more accommodating of each other and our differences. The older generations still hang on to the way things were when they were children. This leads to believing that American cars are the best and that’s what you should buy.

It is important that we buy American cars though, because it means you are supporting your own country. There are so many industries that end up over seas because of pricing. We can’t let American cars disappear. Your fellow countrymen and women who work hard building American cars may lose their jobs if sales dip too low. Though there are many affordable and great foreign cars, the next time you go out for a new car, don’t forget to at least try a few cars made in America before you make your purchase.

Charcoal has served humanity well over the years, providing fuel for cooking and heating. Technology has marched on but barbecue owners still like to use the briquettes that give food so much flavor. The other happy outcome of this material has been its application in art. There are many mediums through which the artist can express his or her vision. Charcoal has been used for as long as anyone can remember. This black residue achieves images that are very atmospheric and delicate. Drawing with charcoal is more popular but several artists have also discovered terrific results in charcoal painting, with both color and monochrome.  It is a method that requires a great deal of skill and aptitude.

Drawing in this medium includes preparatory sketches that develop into finished drawings or paintings. Vine Charcoal is used to make drawing sticks and Compressed Charcoal is powder mixed with gum binder that goes into pencils and crayons. Powdered Charcoal is used to cover the drawing paper and tone the expanse.

One of the most unusual techniques to come from the Surrealist Movement is Parsemage, used as an automatic method and invented by British surrealist, Ithell Colquhoun. This form of charcoal painting involves taking residual dust from charcoal or colored chalk and sprinkling it on the surface of water, then skimming with a rigid material such as cardboard. The result is normally given an application of a fixative.

Several artists continue the interest in landscapes, abstract work and portraits by charcoal painting. Rudolf Boogerman is a painter who works chiefly in charcoal and pastels. He has produced a series of pictures of London, depicting old industrial sites and infrastructure in the capital. The charcoal images in shades of gray are moodily compelling.

Jorge Rodriguez has used the biggest surface on which to paint his charcoal painting portraits in sepia. They appear on the sides of large buildings in the Madrid city center, only to inevitably fade with the onslaught of wind and rain. Bj. de Castro is another artist working in charcoal, producing prints with powerful images such as a stretching gymnast or a horse in motion with a bare tree in the background. Azucena Barrios is a Mexican artist who works in shades of gray and brown to produce montages with titles that include Still Life, a montage of autumn leaves and Multiple Flight, an image of birds.

The Sherry Mama Company, based in China, reproduces prints for sale of charcoal painting on heavy paper. These are candid portraits of Chinese men, women and children in monochrome.
 

As an artist, I really have to do everything that I can to try to publicize myself and get known, or else there is simply no chance of getting that all important break. The fact is that there are a lot of different things that you can do to get attention for your art, but not all of them are really going to help you all that much. I have been hearing nothing but good things about online art galleries for the last couple of years, and I have finally started to get interested. Although these online art galleries do have some uses, they are not really the end all and be all. In fact, for many kinds of art, online art galleries are almost worthless. Allow me to explain.

The best use for an online art gallery is for displaying something that is either a painting, a drawing, a photograph, or a lithograph. For anything else, an online art gallery really has a lot of drawbacks, and that is no lie. Even for painting, online art galleries really fail to capture the full feel of the piece of art. The thing will look flat, and the texture of the work will not come through in online painting art galleries. Once you get into areas like online glass art galleries, the usefulness really diminishes. Sure, looking at a picture of a great work of art is always a nice way to check it out if you can not see it in person, but in any case except for with photos and posters, online art galleries really lose a whole lot of what is great about the original work. That is why online art galleries are flawed, even if they do have some uses.

Really, the best thing about online art galleries is not getting people to buy your works directly, but getting people interested enough to come to your gallery openings. Once they are there to see your work, you have a much better chance to make the sale, but except for photographers, few artists make a lot of sales through their online art galleries. This does not mean that artists should not take the time to set up online art galleries. On the contrary, they are cheap and easy to set up, and can provide publicity for next to nothing at all. That makes it worth the time, don’t you agree?

Art lovers are very lucky in being able to buy prints and posters of just about every artist from the past and the present. It’s easier than ever, with so many online companies specializing in art posters, to get just the one you want. All the famous and not so famous are featured and every art movement from cave painting to today’s minimalism is represented.  Posters make great presents too, making great art affordable for everyone.

Fine art portraits are very popular, as in Jan Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, especially in vogue since the release of the film of the same name. Pre-Raphaelite paintings are also available as art posters, such as the Lady of Shallot by Waterhouse. For more modern tastes, there is Gustav Klimt and Roy Lichtenstein. Religious pictures form some of the most popular images. Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam and The Last Judgment are very powerful. Raphael is also for sale, with various depictions of the Madonna.  Admirers of Still Life can buy art posters in differing styles, from Paul Cézanne to Pablo Picasso.

The history of art can be traced in its various movements and developments. Art posters are ideal in showing the Art Nouveau and Art Deco artists of the periods. The Impressionist painters are much sought after, especially the works of Monet, Degas and Renoir. Later movements, such as Surrealism, are also available. The most popular surrealist is probably Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte and Joan Miro are fine examples too. Art posters suit the Abstract Art style, with the vibrant colors and geometric forms. Popular artists in this genre include Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock.

There are also a number of parodies, which have fun with famous paintings through the ages as spoof art.  Most people have seen the Mona Lisa by da Vinci with a dubious looking cigarette hanging from her mouth. Dali famously put a moustache on her too. Raphael’s Angels can be seen enjoying a glass of beer and Beavis and Butthead take their places in the iconic American Gothic by Grant Wood. Homer Simpson is seen standing on the bridge in Munch’s The Scream.

If you think that posters belong on the wall of a college student apartment, they can be upgraded by framing them. Office spaces can also be made more interesting by hanging an art poster and clients will think you have class. Leave Beavis and Butthead to the student collector, however.