forever fickle

a lonely bird // i draw sometimes // my art

[crownstar]

Live version of Sequel by LUCY ! (with ENG subs)

[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 :')

[pollsforadults]

You get transported into the universe of the last media you consumed. How are you doing?

This is better than my real life

I'm doing well

I'm doing fine

I'm not having a good time

I'm absolutely cooked

There is nothing different about this universe and my own

Voting ended onMay 29

[itseasytoremember]

(To the tune of Rasputin): BLEH BLEH DRACULA, KING OF TRANSYLVANIA, HE IS A BAT AND ALSO A MAN

[crownstar]

the sailboats are back on the lake ! ⛵️

the trolley is also back in action for the season 🚋

[biglawbear]

I'm instituting a new policy of "if I can't easily read your crusty scanned PDF then I'm sending it back to you, telling you to get your shit together and save your .docx as .pdf, and causing snakes to manifest inside your house"

[christaaah]

this but also if you are in accounting and you have an Excel file please do not save it as a PDF or take a screenshot of it and then paste it into another Excel file

[biglawbear]

I take it back whatever you have going on is way worse than what I was dealing with holy shit

[firstbornsons-deactivated202605]

@thesummoningdark hello?????

[thesummoningdark]

yeah no this is a real thing an actual human being said to me

[biglawbear]

Good afternoon to everyone in the notes having a horrible time! Y'all are fighting demons I never knew existed!! I think every person that makes you do stupid time wasting shit like this because they refuse to learn basic computer literacy should be fired!!

[phantomrose96]

Having some thoughts in the chat today about the fact that Mob would now be 28 years old in 2026.

Bonus:

[detectivehole]

"why do you know that" i am curious about the world around me

[etirabys]

oh my goodness, one of dian fossey’s first close up observations with gorillas happened when she was trying to climb a tree to see them better, but so badly that by the time she’d gotten up the entire group had come out of hiding to look at her: “Nearly all members of the group had totally exposed themselves, forgetting about hiding coyly behind foliage screens because it was obvious to them that the observer had been distracted by tree-climbing problems, an activity they could understand.”

[argumate]

hello, fellow apes

[spitoutthedaisyhoratio]

The lead up to that sentence is gold:

[consistantly-changing]

[Image transcript: porch. The group had been day-nesting and sunbathing when I contacted them, but upon my approach they nervously retreated to obscure themselves behind thick foliage. Frustrated but determined to see them better, I decided to climb a tree, not one of my better talents. The tree was particularly slithery and, try as I might, no amount of puffing, pulling, gripping, or clawing succeeded in getting me more than a few feet aboveground. Disgustedly, I was about to give up when Sanwekwe came to my aid by giving one mighty boost to my protruding rump; tears were running from his eyes as he was convulsed in silent laughter. I felt as inept as a baby taking its first step. Finally able to grab on to a conveniently placed branch, I hauled myself up into a respectful semislouch position in the tree about twenty feet from the ground. By this time I naturally assumed that the combined noises of panting, cursing, and branch-breaking made during the initial climbing attempts must have frightened the group on to the next mountain. I was amazed to look around and find that the entire group had returned and were sitting like front row spectators at a sideshow. All that was needed to make the image complete were a few gorilla-sized bags of popcorn and some cotton candy! This was the first live audience I had ever had in my life and certainly the least expected.]

[roach-works]

imagine some freakish not-a-human alien THING has shown up out of nowhere and is trying to get into your office building to study you. but it has no idea how to get past a revolving door. it tries for three hours. by the time it finally understands the concept of a revolving door and squeeze into the building everyone in the office is crowded into the lobby to watch and call helpful suggestions. it’s conclusively determined that the alien is definitely not a threat, except maybe to itself.

[obeliskthetormentorsfeetpics]

Addition approved

[stuffaboutminneapolis]

[importantcatpics]

[cannibalchicken]

[icedoatmilkmatcha-deactivated20]

also

[yeahokayillreblogthat]

Yeah okay Ill reblog that!

[aggressivelybicaptainamerica]

Not a scholar at first, but the guy who wrote Jaws hated that people used it to justify hating sharks so much he dedicated the rest of his life to shark research and advocacy.

[ruffboi-mags]

The woman who popularized gender reveals wishes she hadn't, afaik.

[fall1ngfeather]

(afaik- the woman who popularized gender reveals did so because she had a long history of miscarriages. The reveal was a celebration of the fact that one of her pregnancies had gotten far enough that there WAS a physical sex to reveal. It was never intended to be like... *gestures at modern gender reveals* all that. That same kid later came out as trans and yes, the family had a second gender reveal for that lol.)

[p00pym00py]

This whole thread is so beautiful to me that I can explain it

[my-random-fandoms]

[pouncequick]

K-Cup coffee pod creator wishes he'd never thought of them | CBC News

The man who invented the K-Cup coffee pod almost 20 years ago says he regrets doing so and can't understand the popularity of the products t

[jackironsides]

L. David Mech, who popularised the idea that there were 'alpha' and 'beta' wolves in his 1970 book The Wolf, has spent the rest of his career trying to debunk this. (The original studies were done on captive wolves, and thus didn't simulate an accurate model of wolf pack dynamics.)

Is the Alpha Wolf Idea a Myth?

The idea that wolf packs are led by a merciless dictator, or alpha wolf, comes from old studies of captive wolves. In the wild, wolf packs a

In the wild, researchers have found that most wolf packs are simply families, led by a breeding pair, and bloody duels for supremacy are rare.

“What would be the value of calling a human father the alpha male?” says L. David Mech, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied wolf packs in the wild for decades. “He’s just the father of the family. And that’s exactly the way it is with wolves.”

[moveslikekeithrichards]

there is no greater joy on this earth than Making Lists, Categorizing, & Sorting

[flying-lemons]

oh do I have the game for you

[dancing-crow]

I could . not. put. this down for 48 hours - stayed up too late, had weird dreams about it, woke up early, and played it while I was supposed to be doing other things. the last several dozen items took a lot of googling, which I do not even begrudge it.

and then. My partner started it. And the SAME THING happened to him.

surprisingly compelling. start when you have free time. like, yanno, a snow day.

[foone]

oh my god, if you are the kind of person who gets sucked into logic puzzles, do not click that link if you have to do anything/go to sleep in the next couple hours

[improbabledreams900]

I was disappointed there weren't more levels, so I made them! The creator's code was under CC Share Alike, so I moved a copy to my website, rustled up 40 new categories, and added buttons so you can generate smaller puzzles!

Check it out! More levels!

[aropride]

could an average, able-bodied person reasonably walk from where you live to a library, in good weather?

yes, because i live at a school/college etc with a library

yes, very easily

yes, there's a library in a reasonable walking distance

yes, but it'd take a while / terrain would suck to navigate

yes, but it'd take so long / be difficult enough to do that nobody would

no, there's no library in a reasonable walking distance

Voting ended onApr 23

[shittysawtraps]

can i be a big hater about something unrelated for a second

[shittysawtraps]

ok awesome

so i have finished a psychological thriller novel, and have begun the process of doing research so i can prepare to query agents. now, my novel has some pretty intense triggers in it, so i am aware it’s a bit of a hard sell– that being said, many agents have a “do not send me your novel if it has these things” list, so that’s what I’m looking for so i don’t accidentally trigger someone.

so i’m going down this list, and i find this agent. their “do not send me” list includes the following: non-consent/sexual violence, age gaps, teacher/student relationships, stalkers, cheating, everyone dies at the end, miscarriage/pregnancy, and abuse masked as love.

okay, cool! everyone has different tolerances for stuff, and it’s perfectly reasonable to not want to be involved with a story that has stuff you’re uncomfortable with. not the agent for me, but good on them for defining their boundaries.

but then i scroll back up and they’re requesting for gothic horror.

excuse me?????????

gothic horror without pregnancy or miscarriage? gothic horror without cheating? without stalking? gothic horror without major character deaths? GOTHIC HORROR WITHOUT ABUSE BEING FRAMED AS LOVE AND THE INTERROGATION OF THAT DYNAMIC?????

HEY CAN I GET A GOTHIC HORROR WITH NOTHING???

THAT’S JUST A STORY ABOUT A BIG HOUSE

[phantomrose96]

Across tumblr no one owns a truck for clout and that’s quite a good thing.

[phantomrose96]

To start 30% of tumblr users don’t own their own car, which already eliminates quite a lot of potential truck havingness you see.

Then among the car havers, the most common kind is a 20 year old sedan that was purchased for $2,400 and will be driven until the rims weather into sediment and become a new kind of sedan sedimentary rock called a sedanimentary rock. The second most common kind of car is a Subaru purchased by two lesbians who are no longer in a relationship but remain good enough friends still to be effective car co-parents.

Now this does leave an amount of truck havers. About 0.5-1% according to science. But importantly when you ask them about the truck the answer is “yeah my job is to pull stuck bulls out of the mud on the farm” and then they pull away and you get to see all the muddy bulls in the back of their truck, which is a real treat.

[starlight-shadowbanned]

your vehicle?

i do not own my own vehicle

i own a cheap sedan which i will drive until it disintegrates

i own a subaru

i own a work truck

i own a truck that is not for work

im bald/vanilla extract

Voting ended onApr 21

[jhoomwrites]

when reading a book, do you read the prologue/epilogue?

yes

prologue only

epilogue only

no

nuance (comments/tags)

Voting ended onApr 13

[yusuke-of-valla]

Looking at the tags, a lot of people are blessedly unaware of the Discourse, for posterity: