Bird Mom 💜Tired 🤍Asexual🖤 🍞Bread and Roses🌹 @cottagecrowe - Tumblr Blog

sword and shield

tip jar!

I want you all to imagine with me, if you will, what I witnessed today.

McDonalds parking lot. teenage boy. giant polished white ford Tundra. windows down. blasting. I mean BLASTING. Beethoven's moonlight sonata. boy demolishing burger.

domina-honoribila

White Boy Summer

tetitasdelimon

top 5 horror movies

-having a job

-not having a job

-applying for jobs

-the job market

-the concept of working my whole life

fairycosmos

fucked that you can’t fix other people especially when you really care about them. Oh so im just supposed to be there for you while you suffer. like a useless cunt gargoyle

beardedmrbean

official-german-puns

Kannst du das sehen, Deutsche Bahn?

swamp-land

commission

nattousan

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

nattousan

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

nattousan

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

nattousan

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

nattousan

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

nattousan

Madam....

nattousan

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

nattousan

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

nattousan

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

nattousan

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

nattousan

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

nattousan

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

nattousan

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

nattousan

thanks for the reminder, kid

nattousan

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

kosmogrl

this is so cool!!

kosmogrl

petrova-chords

“You sleep, I watch.” means so much to me.

I’m asexual. I view intimacy very differently than most people. The literal act of sleeping beside someone is a far deeper allowance of vulnerability and trust than sex is for me. Some of my fondest memories of my former partner and those I love platonically, have been letting them rest beside or on me. And in reverse, its the same. Feeling safe enough to let go entirely in the presence of another person is rare for me. But its so comforting. My best friends know for sure I love 'em if I've nodded off in their presence.

When Rocky and Grace were worriedly waiting for each other to wake up after Adrian, I felt that. Been in similar situations a few times. And I always felt better that I could watch over the other person while they were ill or recovering from a surgery.

I dunno guys, this whole film already means so much to me as an ace person. But watching Grace and Rocky slowly form a bond and watching each other sleep, with such trust and love, just gets me right in the heart especially. Love love love all the fan art of it.

“Someone needs to keep you safe.”

aro-ace-chaos

I’m so tired of the “why do people hate aspecs, they aren’t doing anything?” argument. I know that it is an attempt to support us, but it fails so spectacularly to understand aromanticism, asexuality, and any other aspec identity that it’s actively frustrating.

We are doing something. We’re rejecting allonormative ideals and that’s a massive thing to do. We’re actively fighting not just to help other aspecs, but to help everyone, because amatonormativity (and allonormativity as a whole) hurt everyone. Single people who want to find a partner but can’t also deserve to be able to exist.

There are so many issues with the expectation of marriage, including:

A single income isn't enough to get by anymore

Having a spouse is almost necessary under the current medical system

Society shames and pressures people who are single to get into relationships constantly

Rejecting allonormativity means fighting against these things that hurt everyone.

So, no, aces and aros and other aspecs aren't "doing nothing." We're doing quite a lot.

arcade-confetti

Oh youre "nonbinary"? Can i put you in a box please. Can i pleaseeeee put you in a box. We have two boxes and i really wanna put you in one. But dont worry. My boxes are very Woke and Nuanced. So its fine to put you in one. Pleaseeeee. Wow... youre such a bitch... not letting me put into one of two nuanced and essential necessary boxes... you obviously go into the box all those evil bitches end up in

wyrd-chantry

This is a Trans Victory Sigil. It was designed to help trans people achieve victory any victory. Post a pro trans sigil for trans victory, protection, stealth etc in the notes.

what-even-is-thiss

A lot of my personal political opinions boil down to “hey this thing clearly isn’t going anywhere so maybe if we’re stuck with it then we should make it better and see what’s good about it” and a lot of people on tumblr generally seem to interpret that sentiment as me saying “I think that the current system is perfect and am ignoring everything bad about it and also I’m going to kill your mother”

what-even-is-thiss

Personally I’m a pragmatist when it comes to politics. I wanna know what I can get done now and in the realistically near future. Which really annoys a lot of idealists, I’m learning.

If I have to work within the system to make things better I’m gonna do that. If working outside of the system works better then I’ll do that. Realistically you probably need a combination of both.

what-even-is-thiss

There’s a lot of “this is how it’s always been” attitudes out there I’ve noticed. And the two reactions that frequently annoy me are “so we can’t change it” and “so we have to tear down all of it”

First of all, no matter what you’re talking about it probably hasn’t always been like this. Things change constantly. Second of all, there’s a middle ground in life between tearing down the system to the foundation and allowing it to continue unchanged. In fact, that middle ground is where a lot of utilitarian, unglamorous progress happens while those two groups on the extremes are sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

The day to day actions of making the world a better place are boring and they’re often a repetitive slog. Voting, donating, protesting, volunteering, picking up trash, lying down in a government building, boycotting, planting gardens, working, parenting, walking from office to office and asking for things directly. Chipping away at a concrete wall with a spoon.

Here’s the thing though. There’s a lot of people with spoons. So unless you’re planning out the revolution all by yourself then get swinging with that spoon of yours.