Vita Lucia

[1five1two]

'The Rising Sun'. Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. 1903-1904.

[firebatvillain]

One fun thing about learning new languages is reconsidering the structure of words and language in your mother tongue. It seems with each new language I study, I get more little insights into English, either in how it's similar or how it's different.

For example, a couple years ago, while learning Spanish, I encountered the word for a store, "la tienda." I thought "huh, that's a lot like tener (tiene) - the word for store in Spanish literally corresponds to 'to have/keep'. How interesting!"

Then I stopped for a moment, and for the first time in my life, thought about seriously about the meaning of English word for the place where you buy things, "a store."

[catchymemes]

[musingsofaraven]

Unless you speak whatever the language in this is (maybe Russian? It sounds at least related to Russian), you won’t understand exactly what they’re saying

You will however, understand exactly what they’re saying from the context of the video

And you will get to hear this person’s wonderful laughter

Sound definitely needs to be on

[ziusik]

that is, in fact, Russian! And you do not, in fact, need to understand what she’s saying, but I WILL say, she is very funny and adorable, and I have also had this experience in several places around the world and my question is WHY ARE WE DOING THIS!!!!!! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!!!! ARE ALL HOTEL ARCHITECTS EXHIBITIONISTS AND VOEYURS?? I DON’T WISH TO BE OBSERVED WHILE POOPING, THIS IS A LINE FOR ME

anyway

[transformativeworks]

The TikTok Team is back again with a Tag Wrangler Hear Me Out Cake.

(YouTube link)

[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 :')

[skulkingwriter]

Happy 10th birthday to this banger

[abbynormal-things]

Fleetwood Mac - Silver Springs (Official Live Video) [HD]

[famouspainterwombat]

[talvin-muircastle]

[gryffindorcls]

Wow, I did not see that coming.

[dduane]

Here are the two ladies who voice the Minions in Italian

People at the former Bird Place have been saying that they would gladly watch a whole Minions film (even though they've never seen one before) if it also featured these ladies in an additional video box.

Have to agree with that position... :)

[eileensdress]

Oh my god I was just looking to see how much a copy of Hamlet would be through Barnes and Noble and PEOPLE ARE ROLEPLAYING WARRIOR CATS IN THE REVIEWS??????

[toadcroaky]

@vriska

[shamesonlydaughter]

ok i was VERY involved in the. b&n reviews warrior cats roleplay scene when i was like 10-12. the first two books of the series were general hubs where ppl would post ads for their clans and other groups. there was a huge percy jackson community i remember participating in too. it worked through search results, eg. riverclan might be under the search result “rivers”. book 1 was rules and a “map”, book 2 might be the main area, book 3 the medicine cats tent, etc. there was also usually a book where ppl would post lengthy descriptions of their character(s). it was a rlly bizarre little corner of the internet jdksj also it was impossible to find any real reviews of any of the warrior cats books bc of it

[darkcomedies-deactivated2022042]

this is unironically kind of cool

[dia-tribe]

I rbed this silently but I think I've gotta answer some questions now. I was a big part of this whole thing and the reason we didn't use forums was because 90% of us didn't have normal internet access. Barnes and Noble had an e-reader that could connect to the internet and reach their digital store, which was great for those of us with controlling parents who only let us read books.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

I want to go back in time and write my doctoral dissertation on this

[useless-catalanfacts]

Earrings by the Masriera atelier, the most famous jeweller family during the Catalan modernist movement (Catalonia's equivalent of art nouveau but with a strong emphasis on Catalan traditional crafts and symbols). Their descendants still make jewellery in the same style, some are the same designs and some are new ones following the style.

Photos from the Masriera online shop.

[memories-of-ancients]

The Gold Pectoral of Tovsta Mohyla, uncovered in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine.

Greco-Scythian, 4th century BC

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[fadingembers]

As a kid, I was really upset that Bill Watterson wouldn't license Calvin & Hobbes so I could have plushies or so there would be a Saturday morning cartoon. Now, I realize his resistance is the reason we don't have a Calvin & Hobbes DreamWorks movie starring Chris Pratt.

[aviantastic]

Tree Swallows by Linda H. Dulak - Audubon Photography Awards

[fluentisonus]

barn swallows depicted in the “spring fresco”, akrotiri, thera, greece. c. 16th century BC

[cryptidofthecove]

[viewtiful-kim-deactivated202105]

Hamlet adaptation where Hamlet is a vlogger and all his soliloquies are breakdowns he uploads to YouTube

[animatedamerican]

… I am unironically here for this

[oldfilmsflicker]

this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life

[kabesattic]

This is - legitimately - my favourite delivery of Shakespeare I have EVER seen (and I have seen some good-ass productions yo, in the Globe Theatre itself even). Like seriously, even though the words are unchanged, he’s stripped away ALL of the archaic pretense and assumed grandeur of ~presenting the bard~ that makes even the most wildly talented of actors and innovative of productions inherently inaccessible to a modern audience. Like, they’re still great, they can still communicate the message and (some) of the nuance, but they’re still always a step removed from being identifiable to any viewer’s lived experience. They’re still always reciting 15th century poetry. But this guy? This guy is like, screw iambic pentameter, to hell with being precious about the material, HOW WOULD AN ACTUAL PERSON SAY THIS SHIT?

Like this. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to hear a soliloquy I loved so much already, and have it come to life in a way it never, ever, did before. I feel like I grasp his motivations, his twists and turns, no longer on an academic level but on a visceral, instinctive one. Because he’s presenting his mental and emotional journey in a way that speaks honestly, like a real person.

So yeah, this shit post? I love it. Deeply and sincerely.

[ellengton]

an absolutely stunning interpretation