Demi, she/her, 30s, Me being me. I obsess over fandoms. There will be plenty of funny and odd things here but be warned I've always been all over the place. :)
As a professional hand engraver, when it comes to old crafts like these, its way more accessible to get started with the basics than you'd expect. Back in the day good steel was expensive so trying something like hand engraving was expensive and difficult to justify. But now you can can just buy a good quality handpush graver online for less than a fancy coffee. Just think, for under a hundred quid you could get all the kit you need to get started with fucking up coins and stabbing yourself repeatedly!!!
Don't threaten to do it, go research it, and actually give it a go!!! Most of the books for old crafts are out of copyright. Even if you don't get a job at whatever you try, or hell, even of you don't become in any way good at it, just learning and trying something new is good for you, and it gives you a greater understanding and appreciation for things.
Fuck AI? Good. I agree. Now fucking do something about it. Return to doing human hand crafted things as an act of rebellion! Start knitting, start wood carving, start engraving, whatever the fuck. But most importantly, remember you don't need to be making money doing it to make it worth doing.
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"Sewing is a gateway drug to thinking through complex problems. It seems really simple; culturally, we make it women's work. Let me tell you: real sewing at any kind of level of proficiency is a bloody magic trick. Sewing, like mold making, involves mental frames that require one to think inside out and backwards. It requires one to work on an order of operations that is often taking into account the reverse. It's a really, really important skill, and if you learn how to sew, you're mostly on your way to carpentry and welding and sheet metal work. I'm not kidding: these are planar forms meeting under rules and conditions. And if you can make a sleeve work, I swear to God, you could build a house."
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stop, take a moment to gather yourself and breathe deeply (stop, take a moment to apply first aid to your wound)
find the root cause of your anger; what brought your anger about and how come? (find what caused your injury; what hurt you, what type of wound?)
what can you do to regain control? try not to fuel the anger with violence; mitigate by being gentle to yourself and others (what can you do to keep you safe from further and future injury? what further treatment do you need? try not to aggravate your wound; be gentle and cautious)
accept you've done all you can, continue to breathe deeply, and find comfort away from anger and violence (accept you have done all you can and continue to take care of yourself)
It's done! I am so freaking thrilled with how this came out. It was immensely fun taking the old poster and trying to figure out a balance between the old art and a modern take on fire management, as well as how to make it my own while retaining as much of the original style and color as possible. And I'm not normally one to stick my whole logo on my illustrations, but I wanted to match the original poster which as the USFS logo there, so!
Shout out to @vaspider for helping me puzzle out better wording for the bottom chunk of the poster.
You can get prints and shirts with this design in my Printful shop! If there's another product you'd like to see it on, let me know!
Some more thoughts and ramblings about this piece below the cut, including a side-by-side with the original poster.
The Death Rides poster was produced in 1933 by the US Forest Service, but I've sadly never seen the specific artist named anywhere. It reflects the pretty typical attitude of the time that fire=bad, that it leads to death as a negative thing. It's also one of the most popular pre-Smokey Bear fire prevention posters. This thing is EVERYWHERE, especially in wildland fire circles. It's on posters, shirts, even a few logos.
I have never seen a GOOD reproduction of the thing. I feel like there's got to be a good quality one sitting around somewhere, but it sure doesn't seem to have made its way onto the internet. They're all grainy with strange color splotches, but that's never seemed to effect its popularity.
I do really love the concept of the original poster, and the simple phrasing that drives home the clear message. For my redo, I wanted to keep the overall look and feel, and the simple, clear message, but changing it to match modern understandings of fire and its place in the cycle of life in forests. I set out with the following goals:
Show fire as a part of the natural cycle that helps keep landscapes healthy.
Make the horse less distressed looking.
Remove the gendered language from the messaging.
Keep as much of the original posing, composition, and colors as possible.
Showing the renewal cycle was the trickiest part, because the composition really didn't leave a lot of room to show the regrowth portion. I think I came up with a good balance, though, by having the forest very overgrown, dark, and unhealthy, then having the strong dividing diagonal/arrow of fire bringing light into that dark overgrowth, and the open, regrowing portion behind the smoke and flames. I also had the regrowth coming from the horse's hooves so that the horse is more of an active piece of the story, rather than being forced through the whole affair.
The regrowing plants in the background are fire poppies and fireweed, as well as a few distant aspen saplings, all of which are some of the first plants to come back after wildfires move through. Death also got a fire poppy as the clasp of their cloak.
For the phrasing, I came up with "Death Renews the Forest" almost immediately, but I had more trouble with the bottom portion. I wanted the phrase to not be gendered anymore, so switched it to "we." Initially I thought about something like "When we are educated in its use." But I wasn't a big fan of "use." While the poster does feature Death doing an intentional prescribed burn, I also wanted the phrasing to apply to letting naturally lightning caused fires burn. So less "use" and more embracing fire overall. This is especially true given that in the US we have, unfortunately, gone back to a full suppression strategy as of 2026 thanks to an executive order from the orange menace. So, despite decades of research showing how much harm that causes, we've been ordered to start doing it again. Which, to me, just makes this redo of the poster even more relevant right now.
Spider helped me puzzle out some other phrasing ideas, and I really liked this final one. I think it is balanced really well with the top portion of the text, and the overall message of the poster.
So yes! Had a lot of fun with this. I probably will do some more redos of other famous prevention posters at some point, but I'm not sure when or which ones.
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' >:)
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 š
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 š„¹
Does anybody have the vaguest idea what these guys are? (Image shot on the bridge over the River Slaney in Baltinglass. There are a LOT more like this growing on the south side of the wall. ...Forgive me for not investigating the north side of the wall, as I had no desire to wind up in the river. Even if it's very clean, as you can tell by the herons fishing in it. And the trout, who look very happy with the environment.)
The flowering plant is Ivy-Leaved Toadflax, and it's companion fern is a Maidenhair Spleenwort. Both are plants that have adapted well to living on stone walls. The flowers of the Toadflax are heliotropic, meaning they turn to stay facing the sun, until they've been pollinated and fertilized, whereupon they twist around and back down into the plant/crevice they came out of, effectively planting their own seeds back in the wall.
It's a lot healthier to go for a daily walk than to sign up for a gym membership you won't be using because you hate that kind of exercise. It's a lot healthier to eat a frozen meal than to skip a meal because you were too tired to cook something healthy. It's a lot healthier to take a quick shower than to procrastinate an elaborate routine for days. Don't aim so high that you won't be hitting anything!
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It's Your Local Bardic entity, Gallus Rostromengalus of Bread Jesus and other Weird Tumblr Story Fame.
Despite my best efforts to mitigate mt Terrible English Dental DNA, today two of my teeth broke.
I don't even have a fun story about this, it's literally terrible genetics and stress-grinding my teeth in my sleep.
I just got back from emergency surgery to get the pieces pulled and the hole in my jaw closed so I don't get an infection, but a second reconstruction surgery to give me a bone graft and dental implants will be needed so I can actually chew and use my mouth for it's intended purposes.
IĀ doĀ notĀ currentlyĀ haveĀ dentalĀ insurance.
I haven't talked about it here much, but my husband was unemployed after getting laid off for almost all of last year. He has a job again, but it pays like 2/3rds of his previous one and the benefits are crap. Like no dental insurance until he's worked there at least a year.
So I'm on the hook for the full cost of Today's emergency surgery, Medication, and the necessary follow-up reconstruction, which my dentist estimates will cost between $5000-$7000. Our dentist has given us every discount she can and we have a payment plan, but losing half our household income has left us with no savings and credit cards at their limits.
Even though I only need to come up with $500 this month to go ahead with the reconstructive surgery, I do not have any money to spare. It will also be VASTLY cheaper overall to pay for everything up front rather than pay interest over the months with the payment plan, but literally anything will help me right now.
Link To My GoFundMe
Link To My Ko-Fi
ThankĀ youĀ allĀ soĀ much,
Gallus
Pic of Chaleston Chew lounging on his pillows because pics generally help these posts but I do not want to inflict images of Dental Trauma on all of you.
#this post is one hr old and has been on my dash #FIVE TIMES #from completely separate people #not mutuals reblogging each other #people I follow who all reblogged it from someone different#Iām fascinated
everyone wants to mock my suggestive birdwatching mishaps
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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, heās 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, theyāre still great, they can still communicate the message and (some) of the nuance, but theyāre still always a step removed from being identifiable to any viewerās lived experience. Theyāre 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 itās beautiful. Itās 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 heās 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.
