Draw with Hdogg

I'm Hdogg - an artist, potter, girl gamer, bad dresser. Come draw with me! Portfolio is at http://cataclysm.studio

[yeehawpim]

I can be the ship and its sailors

[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 :')

[embroiderycrafts]

"I knew I shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms!", sighed Colin, as the world around him dissolved into space and his feathers took on hues he had never seen before, as he transformed into ✨ Cosmic Pidge ✨ 🐦 ✨ by hvalur87 on reddit.

[monstermonger]

Friend in an alleyway | my wife sent me this photo the other day and said "you HAVE to draw this." and I agreed completely <:

[pnglove]

[minxitsy]

@labcorp

[6vcr]

[bestiolin]

lyn chao yu

[vanessagillings]

Calico cat in a calico coat!

[beelur]

[taurzza]

[mostlycatsmostly]

Credit - @taurzza

[musashi]

Hey can you guys reblog Cheeseburger so he can take a sunbeam nap on lots of blogs. No other reason I just want you guys to see him.

[musashi]

So, Cheeseburger died on November 21st after an unfairly short battle with an unfairly rare cancer that is rarely seen in cats. I only got to spend a month with him after his diagnosis, and losing him has been the greatest heartbreak of my entire life so far. He was my best friend and my soul cat, and he was there for me when I was completely alone, for twelve long years.

I made this transparent PNG the night he died in preparation for one of the many ways I was going to memorialize him--a surface rug in his likeness that I planned on laying directly in the line of his favourite sunbeam. And I uploaded that PNG here, because this is the website where people post their cats.

I was not expecting the reception I got. Many people have pointed out that this post has more reblogs than likes, and how insane that is in 2025 when reblog culture is at an all time low. I didn't even talk about the fact that Burger passed away in the original post, it wasn't a tearjerker reblog bait or anything like that. People just loved Burger that much, in the same way I fell in love with him at first sight. He was such an ugly kitten.

Anyways, it's really special to me that so many people have reblogged my best friend. I made this PNG to memorialize him in a completely different way, and you all wound up doing just that in ways I never even imagined.

Thank you. Wherever he is, I know the sun is shining.

[hdiggitydogg]

[prguitarman]

Back in 2021, I tried my hand at creating an Aurora Nyan Cat inspired by the Aurora Borealis, but I just couldn’t nail it. Honestly, the vision and skills weren’t quite there yet, so I ended up shelving the piece.

A few months ago, I got to see the real Auroras, and it sparked something in me to revisit this piece, and after some time it’s finally finished the way I remembered that moment. Very happy with how it came out, and honestly, it’s okay to step back from a project and come back with fresh eyes—even if it takes a while.

Enjoy a timelapse of the work 🌌✨

[hdiggitydogg]

I saw the aurora yesterday too! The southern lights not the northern ones, but we have them!

[hdiggitydogg]

Apologies, I have added the Cat Tax

[prguitarman]

Back in 2021, I tried my hand at creating an Aurora Nyan Cat inspired by the Aurora Borealis, but I just couldn’t nail it. Honestly, the vision and skills weren’t quite there yet, so I ended up shelving the piece.

A few months ago, I got to see the real Auroras, and it sparked something in me to revisit this piece, and after some time it’s finally finished the way I remembered that moment. Very happy with how it came out, and honestly, it’s okay to step back from a project and come back with fresh eyes—even if it takes a while.

Enjoy a timelapse of the work 🌌✨

[hdiggitydogg]

I saw the aurora yesterday too! The southern lights not the northern ones, but we have them!

[hdiggitydogg]

[crab-milk]

red xiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thegenderal]

as a denizen of this busted ass website for half my life now i do know how staff works and i’m going to lay out what they think will happen as someone who has witnessed this exact thing play out

People get very mad for a few days and then roll over and accept the change to the enclosure. This is what they are betting on. They have had meetings about this.

Getting around it: set an alarm. Get mad not just now, but in a few days, a week, two weeks. They are expecting people to sigh and get over this very odd edit to the site in a few days. Keep flooding them for more than just tonight. Be mad for the week, for the month. Leave a message every day.

[thegenderal]

like . I cant even blame them for being like “we’ll monitor for the week”. Remember when they changed the blue back in like 2015? This website acted like staff had gone into their house and shot their dog. We’re here because we’re allergic to change and therefore it’s hard to parse if people hate the change because it’s bad or because we go into thermonuclear meltdown over what color blue the background of the website is. Just continue to bug them beyond today and beyond this week.