Here are gathered very different people around the world. It would be interesting to find more about you all. Are you old or young, what are you do for living, where do you live, how do you spend your free time (except drawing) and etc?

I'll make a start..

I'm 32 years old woman from Estonia. I'm mother of one girl (3y) and two boys (10y and 15y). By the faith I raise them alone, but that's ok. They are marvellous kids and make it easy. I work at telecommunication company as an release manager. Very intensive, but interesting job. Most of my free time goes to children, but if I have some time for myself I like to read and listen music and draw of course

Well, now it's your turn

hi there, nice to meet you,

I am 43, live in maine, I have one son of my own and two stepchildren. they are all fully grown, my own is 25, and the step kids are in their 30's
I am not working outside the home. plenty here to keep me busy.

very nice to meet you
Kay

For the sake of international unity, I have just removed everything I posted... Lets just say, Snaggle Sorting is not really an occupation.

Later.

54-old Romanian born, living with my husband in california, no children.Used to teach Spanish and French and do research in education, now enjoying the sunny skies of Southern California, part time gourmet chef in my kitchen, part time artist-to-be, globe trotter, and poet at heart.
Nice to meet you.

Hello!

I'm Alexandra. I am 16. I live in Russia.
Hmm... Don't know what to say... Not married, children do not have... Although there is a younger brother and him have to deal with. Learning at school, after two years will end it. With future profession has not yet been determined, but in any case it would be relevant to foreign languages. In my free time I like to paint, travel, listen to music and communicate with my friends. That's all, perhaps...

Alexa

Here we go then! Steve, 53 years old, twice married, twice divorced, been living with my partner Penny for 20 years, 7 children from all three relationships. Haven't seen 5 of them for 18 years. Could be a grandfather by now! My two children at home are quite happy to stay here despite my encouragement to move out and fend for themselves! (Free loaders) I play guitar, bass guitar, some keyboards. Write and record my own songs. (not for some time though!) Suffered a heart attack 4 years ago and subsequent angina. I have since had tubes put in to open up my arteries. And I feel great! I have a very strong sense of humour! If you want to know where that come from, read Douglas Adams, hitchikers guide to the Galaxy, Terry Pratchet, the Disc World series, Monty Python etc. I have very strong political opinions. Don't get me started!

I think that's enough soul bearing!

so nice to meet you steve. and take care of yourself for goodness sake!

I am Russian, married to an Indian, and as a result embracing both Russian and Indian cultures - in the American setting!! I speak Russian and English at home, eat Indian food, listen to Indian music, watch Russian/American/Hindi movies, read Russian/French books, hang out with mostly Indian friends, enjoy American nature and abundance of choices of all kinds
I lived in Russia till i was 21, then moved to India where I spent over 5 years till I came to the US in Sep last year. I am 28 today by the way - it's my birthday!!
I am not sure I will be here forever - most probably we will head back to India after a few years. Back in India I used to teach French - here I am still looking for a job. For this reason, I have more free time here in the US than i did before... and it gave me a chance to finally take up drawing
We don't have any kids yet.

wow my dear how very interesting is your story..and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU Click to view attachment

Nice to meet you all (some for the first time - some again). I am a 47 year old woman - soon to turn 26 again. I lived in North Carolina most of my younger years, then after college took off for the mountains of Colorado. Hung out there for 10 years, doing real estate stuff, full-time secretary, part-time astrologer. Wishing to expand my horizons (we lost our shirts in a property renovation project), I moved to Washington (Seattle area), spent 6 months there. Realized there's no place like home, tapped my heels together three times and came back to NC.

I live here with my husband, 20 cats and one very confused dog. No children - never really wanted any, since I came from a large family (5 sisters, one half-brother). Husband has grown children, but they live far away (sometimes not far enough ). He is a former cabinet-maker, but was in a bad accident about 2 years ago and is now retired on disability. We still enjoy doing some home improvement projects, we are both avid photographers, and on occasion, I draw a picture.

I like it here - it's quiet, people are friendly, and I feel like it's home. I may stay here for a while.

Happy birthday Katya.


No rich people then?

Happy Birthday Katya!

I am 51 years old and have lived in a small village in NY for all of them. I'm married and have 2 kids, both girls, and a grandson. I work at an elementary school and have summers off ..Yea! time for drawing.. My husband is a supervisior of a trucking company and is gone quite alot. I live a quiet boring life and I like it that way..It's so nice to meet you all.
kat

happy birtday katya

hi to meet you all of you. i'm tudorita (my real name), 21 year, i live i braila, it's a small town in S-E of romania. i have 3 brothers and a sister, all maried ,3 with childs.
i work in a factory doing cookie and in my free time (exept drawing) i love to do photo, read and spending time in nature with friends.
enough i think

Dudu, Braila was the town where i had my first teaching position as an English teacher.It was actually the village of Victoria where i tought from age 8 to 14, peasant girls and boys. texts from Shakespeare and Byron.
It was nice to see them in the village greeting me in English. That was 1982.All children had blonde hair and blue eyes, they were so happy and my room was at all times filled with bouquets of flowers from thier gardens.Memories...

really, wow how nice. actualy i'm from a village , chiscani, is closer to town then Victoria.
i never learned english inj my primary school, just french and russian language.
and yes we all loved to give our theachers flowers.
great memories you have
and your born town is? thanx

I am from Bucharest for four generations.
family album

on my family album page click on the photo Bucharest 1901 to see old photos of my birthtown.

Happy birthday kat !!

Glad to meet some new people and get to know some even better .

my name is Kim I am 45 married with two beautiful daughters ..I live in Michigan ..some of you might not know where it is but we are the state that looks like a mitten ..left handed mitten ...why a mitten I can only think that that God said ..." let this place be cold " lol

I love to travel ...I use to live out west in Las Vegas Nevada where when I was 10 got to meet my idol of that time .. Mr. Wayne Newton himself ..lol ok he is not so popular now but hey he was back then (he owns half of vegas) ... along with Donnie and Marie Osmond ..the perks of a aunt working at a hotel show room I got to see and meet celebrities . Las Vegas took a toll on my parents though the money was good the free booze was not lol so we moved back to our old home where i was raised in Lansing Michigan ...popular I was not lol I went against the grain so to say .

I do not ask for much out of life only that I have my health and happiness and my Faith ..its what pulls me through the bad times .

I must say my life is colorful lol and I could go on and on but will stop here .

Hello everyone! I am 56 years old and live in Oregon with my wonderful husband of four years. Most of my time is spent taking care of him and our minature daschund, Jack. I call myself a Domestic Goddess. Between us we have six children from previous marriages..they are all grown and out of the house. A very new beginner at drawing and painting (I was not born with the "art gene"...nor the "math gene" for that matter) Writing is an interest but must work on that to remove the rust from the brain. Ah, well. Life is good.

wow nice family ") i like your poems

How come French is so popular in Romania? Just curious... cos I have a few Romanian friends who speak French, and here on the forum I noticed this Romanian-Frnech connection!

Thanks to all for your kind wishes - I didn't even expect to get so many! It made me happy

Nice to meet everyone and know a little bit more about each of you

Katya, Happy birthday from me too.

You need to know that Romanian being a Romance language has strong ties with French culture and before the second WW there were many private schools by French institutions in Romania especially Bucharest.Many middle class people in big cities had a French governess who was ususlly educated back in France or Switzerland in a pedagogic school.An educated person in the 19th c. Romania could speak French just like any French educated person.
After the war, the educational system retained the tradition of French culture civilazation and language in the public school system and I studied for 8 years French in the compulsory education of 12 years and for 2 years i studied again at the University. The curriculum for foreign languages meant study of grammar and classic texts from Corneille, Racine and le Cid to modern poetry like Louis Aragon, Prevert, etc.
We studied with language teachers i.e graduates of University and the curriculum for humanities(four years in high school) included Latin which is the mother of all Romance languages.
In the '70s a new darling of classrooms became popular, English and between 80's and 90's most of the young generation studied English in public schools.
Russian was introduced compulsory in all communist contries from the eastern block after '45; but most children rejected it as they dreamed of French or English.
Another language with a long tradition in Romania was German and there were special schools and kindergartens for German speaking children.
To that extent these foreign languages influenced education in Romania that school texbooks were most of the time bought in France and Germany and sold in bookstores for schools.Before 1945.
In the soviet era educated people survived culturally by purchasing old books in antiquarian shops which were mainly in French.
Not to say that 19th c. and early 20th c. upper class people sent their children to Paris to study.
Bucharest was just a replica of Paris in design and lifestyle, so the name little Paris.

Thanks for your reply, now I know
I wish Russia had retained the strong ties with France it had had before the Revolution when all the intellectual elite could speak fluent French... it was, in fact, the language of communication in salons and receptions, shared by the higher class. I am also fascinated by French... i make sure I spend enough time daily listening to it
And thanks for your wishes!!

happy birthday katya
and elena thankk you for reply to katya you do know better

Katya, tell us how did you come to learn and love French?
What I know that in the soviet era the teaching of foreign languages in school was much encouraged throughout The USSR.
Once a reporter from Latin America visited Russia in the 90's and people in the street he interviewed, those of my generation could speak currently Spanish and when asked they said they learned in school in the 50's and 60's.
As a matter of fact USSR was the country that implemented in experimental schools advanced teaching methods like alternative education, the american Dewey for instance in the soviet era..
In Romania we had a similar experiment with schools and kindergartens with all subjects taught in a foreign language, that was the 70's with schools for Italian, Spanish, French, German, English and Chinese.
I guess those were the great projects of communism and they were meant towards emancipation and cultural awareness.

Hey Elena! Estonia was part of USSR till 1991 as well and I went to school during 80's. We had foreign languages in school even then. Most of schools taught English and German, but some schools taught French and Finnish too. I can't say that level of teaching was very high, but as you see, I can at least communicate in English. My German is not so good, because I don't have practice. My father went to school in 60's and they were taught foreign languages too. My cousins grew up in Russia at the same time with me and they both speak English even better than me. I think this is one of misconceptions about Soviet era.

what do you mean by misconception? I said that Soviet era encouraged foreign languages.Only that in Romania in the Stalinist times only Russian was taught in schools.Also proletkult (proletkultovşcina) and doing away with bourgeois values associated with French culture is a fact not a misconception.

Elena, I'm sorry, maybe I didn't expressed myself clearly. Big part of the world thinks that we lived like in prison in Soviet era (I know that, because there are many people with whom I have talked about it and they did have this impression). Yes, we were kind of cut off from other world, but we still had all same things. Mostly I just wante to clarify that.

And I didn't mean you have misconception. I just wanted to affirm that you've said before.

It's ok, Sipsik.No offense. I know that the capitalist propaganda showed an imprisoned individual in the Soviet block but actually apart from communist ideology the school system was excellent in the communist countries.

I won't say anything about the Soviet era, cos it's a big debate. But as for foreign language instruction.. I am not at all sure that it was encouraged. Most schools DID have a foreign language, but it was almost intentionally taught in such a way that U can not communicate in it. My parents had both learned English in 60s, and neither of them could ever use it as a communication tool. There was a lot of grammar, rules and theory and very little conversational practice. Specialized university language courses were better, but the whole methodology was not aimed at communication until maybe early 90s... I am sure a lot of research had been long time under way, but the actual change in the teaching approach happened only in my time.. when I was a student. My English classes at school were still somewhat disconnected from reality (at 12-13 we studied such topics as nuclear weapons and economic/political systems of Russia,US, GB), but the shift started happening already. My univ course was absolutely amazing, based on the suggestopoedia method developed by Bulgarian psychologist Dr Lozanov and later adapted for language teaching by other educators. That's how I came to love French. It was 'gifted' to us as an explosion of joy, creativity, play and challenge. I absolutely loved those lessons and learning happened very quickly.

Hello every body, my name is Tony. I am 38 years old, married with 3 sons. My oldest is 20, then 18 and the youngest is 16. I live in east Texas, born and raised there. I'm not a caowboy but I am a country boy. When I'm not drawing I am playing my guitar and singing contempory christian songs. My wife and I reach out to troubled teens and young adults and try to lead them right. I amke a living as a correctional officer for the texas Department of Criminal Justice. I have been doing that for 11 years. My favorite quote is one from my grandfather "a man has only one thing in this life that is his, that is his word. If a man's word is no good, then what does that say about the man?.". I have been drawing since I was a young child. Started off drawing "Ziggy", then went to dinosaurs and Godzilla monsters. I guess the only reason I'm not any better than I am is because my drawing has been on, off, on then off again.

nice to meet you tony and welcome to drawspace

Hi, Tony. Nice to meet you.

Katya, the foreign language curriculum in the soviet era in all satellite countries was aiming at introduction into the cultures of those languages and not conversational skills. For that alone there were special school in my country where you studied a language or two for being guide , interpreter.
The curriculum for foreign language in schools and universities was humanities oriented, which means classical texts from all major authors and aspects of foreign culture.
I studied English in school only for four years age 15-19 and I can remember we did all american poets and writers, some Shakespeare.This is how i came to like literatures and continue my studies in philology which by definition is the study of literary texts. This discipline and studies are going to disappear from curricula as societies move towards integration and comunication rather than scholastic study.
The intellectual the way he used to be in Europe in the 18, 19 and beginning of the 20th c. is no more a reality.In the states in some big universities Shakespeare is not studied and neither he is in any schools for undergraduates.
The high culture is dying in the aula, we have a new form of culture, fast culture just like fast food.

Hello

I'm Roxanne and I'm 20 years old I live in Canada more precisely in Orleans or Ottawa if it's simpler since its like part of it. I was born french and we didn't learn english in school till 4th grade. I just graduated from college in tourism and travel and now on the search for a better job in my domain. I work at Silvercity it's a movie theatre and there I either work concession and sell popcorn and drinks or work box office and sell tickets (which I like much more than concession) I am not married nor do I have any kids. I do have a boyfriend though we've been together 8 months. I have 2 younger sisters (19 and 16) one of them lives with my dad and the other one lives on her own with friends and my mom lives in Sudbury more north of Ontario they separated 2 years ago which came a big shock for me. In my free time I like to hang out with my friends, listen to music, read and draw.

Salut Roxanne.Tu es francaise ou quebecoise?

francaise. I never lived in Quebec.

Nice to meet you all. I am Rafael 39 years married with 1 daughter. I live in Venezuela.
I am a lawyer and when I'm not fighting for my clients in court. I like draw and take photos.
I am learning English by myself (that explain my mistakes when I write).
My fahter is colummnist in a newspaper and I am doing a blog with his works.

Hi All,

Im a 22 young lady from nsw australia. Turning 23 on sept 6th

I work as an administrator for a broadcasting company. I adore horses and if Im not drawing youll usually find me outside with my horse or playing with my dog Tiger. I also adore photography and spend alot of time with photos. I also do alot of work with animal rescue groups and also have volunteered photography which is used by the RSPCA in magazines and on their website.

Thats about me!

Well it's nice to have you here. You sound like a very busy person! Welcome to Drawspace. I've just been looking at your gallary. Very nice work! I hope you'll find time to join in some of the weekly challenges and ATC trades.

welcome to drawspace..we are happy to have you

I'm Cynthia. In real life I'm a secretary in a research centre - Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. I always wanted to draw, but in the old British colonial system of education artistic talent was seen as something one was born with. I suppose that is true for all older systems. Thank goodness that attitude has changed. Or has it?
Like most people I am concerned with the elimination of the arts in education in favour of those that are less soul-satisfying, but more 'marketable'. Where are our young people headed, I wonder.
I could go on, but will stop here

nice to meet you cynthia, welcome to drawspace

Thanks Sipsik for starting this topic... it is fun to hear everyone's stories.

I am fortunate to have lived in quite a few different cities in Canada, Vancouver-BC, Calgary-AB, Regina- Sask, Bathurst-New Brunswick
and to have traveled to every province and territory in this huge country except for Newfoundland. I think that will be a trip in itself someday!

Now, I live in Northern Alberta with my husband of 9 years. We each have 3 children, all are grown and either married or in significant relationships. We have 3 grand children, and another one on the way, and I must admit that they are really important to me! (I'm the "fun" grandma! )

I run, hike and like to travel. I work to live, not live to work for a newspaper selling advertising, my husband is semi-retired and if I'm lucky I will be retired also in a couple of years! Freedom 56? I hope!

tannis, nice to meet you more officially too..I used to work for the york county coast star doing the same, selling ad space for awhile, then moved into classifieds..started out as a temp secretary, but ended up the whole show in the classifieds..Not a bad job at all.
I am also the 'fun' grandmother and get right into playing in the dirt with the kids, and in their fort, chasing them and pushing them in and on their toys..they always love spending time with 'nan'..

I am Maryann. I am 41, single and have one 20 yr old daughter who is still at home. I covet her bedroom as I dream of one day taring out the carpet in favor of cheap wood flooring, to make a studio in there....

Having always been fascinated with watercolor painting....I finally took it up in 2005, with no prior art training whatsoever....just a longing to create. In my real life I am correctional officer. I found it neceassary to find ways to meet 'non-jail' people, to socialize without talking about work..and yet keep my 'always busy' mind occupied. With all that in mind, I signed up for classes...I have had some real goodies I'm proud of...and a lot of bombs!

Three months ago I took a beginner drawing class for the first time ever in hopes of improving my painting...not to mention...painting requires a place to spread your mess, and I really don't have that right now. Drawing is so portable! I am currently looking forward to taking 4 week personal enrichment courses in 'Drawing Faces' and "Figure Drawing' to begin in the fall in my local area.

'Doing art' is theraputic for me, in process I am known to go absolutely deaf from the concentration that comes upon me...it shuts me up, keeps my opinions out of other peoples sense of annoyance , and having done some public drawing recently among co-workers, has even garnered me some respect believe it or not...(my business is brutal, what can I say...)

Hi Maryann, welcome to Drawspace! You'll love it here, it's a very nice and pleasant place to be! We have weekly challenges and ATC trades if you really want to join in and make a few friends from around the world!

welcome to drawspace, relax and enjoy

Thank you for the warm reception, genuinely appreciated.
Oliverandjazz: I just LOVE that avatar drawing!!!! LOL

At the risk of sounding a little narcissistic, now that I'm developing drawing skills,
I have thought it might be fun to draw the Lara Croft video/movie character with my own face, Haha...put it up somewhere at work for fun...

Have any of you ever done that? Draw a superhero with you own face, or that of someone you know??

I love superheroes!

I am in actuality, a real life superhero! But I keep it quiet.