nope.

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

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

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

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

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??

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 🙏

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!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

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

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

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.

Literary Fiction I really enjoy as someone who is mostly an SFF reader

some of these have speculative elements; others are books that I just think go hard. here we are:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell:

most of David Mitchell's books are simply a blast IMO if you're only going to readone it has to be Cloud Atlas. if there was ever a book that has everything it is Cloud Atlas. as a word of warning I will say: if you are unfamiliar it consists of 6 nested stories and the opening section (The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing) is a bit dense but if you power through it you will get to other sections like the 1930s doomed gay romance and the fast food clone dystopia that are a great time.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino:

I would warmly recommend reading this one if you are into writing fantasy in particular. a breezy 165 pages where each chapter is a description of a different fictional city.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark:

we now enter into 'books that simply fuck'. I feel like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is potentially a tough sell if you are not already into the classics given that the premise does not sound very exciting but i gotta say: dude trust me. this one ranks on '100 books to read before you die' or whatever lists over and over for a reason. probably the most perfectly constructed novel i have ever read. and under 200 pages.

Fictions by Jorges Luis Borges:

this is another one i would recommend if you are into writing fiction. "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" in particular has been living rent free in my mind for years. im always wanting to reference it. i wanna be like 'wow this is a real Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' situation but i worry no-one will know what I'm talking about and i will sound like the Gregory Berrycone guy. anyway Borges is really good.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood:

i've read a good chunk of Margaret Atwood and this is solidly my favourite. just an absolutely banging read. the sections about the titular blind assassin are extremely cool. the plot creeps along to this like slow-burning reveal that will have you like ohh... OHHH!!

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson:

as w Blind Assassin this is another one that will slow burn you into a big oh... OH NO?? i read it in a single day (it's under 200 pages) (I like a book that is short) and it really cracks along.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden:

i would just like to say that Rumer Godden is a wildly underrated writer. i came across her first via her children's books and subsequently sought out her adult fiction and was like FUCK me. anyway: Black Narcissus is about a group of English nuns trying to set up a convent in the Himalayas and instead get into some messed up psychological horror. has a movie adaptation that offended the Catholic Legion of Decency.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier:

this is one of ur classic books where everyone says its really really good and then you read it and are like wowie that was really really good.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka:

"Miss" means an unmarried woman. "Mrs." means a married woman. (both of these have origins in the word "mistress" as in "mistress of the house".)

I've had people (usually children) ask me at work if I'm a missus or a miss. I have replied that I am a miz, full stop. And when they pressed for which one I was REALLY, I have replied, "Why? Are you going to treat me differently depending on whether there's a ring somewhere?"

That's what Ms. is for. That is its linguistic function. It says, "This is an adult woman," and nothing else. Nothing else is necessary, and in my case, nothing else is desired.

I also use miz for other women unless and until they express a preference for something else because I don't magically know everyone else's marital status when I meet them. That's a courtesy—I'm declining to assume marital status and allowing them to decide whether they wish to declare it.

Basically I got in and there was an email that there was a new policy on lunch breaks which is that we are required to clock out for 30 minutes for a meal break. Which wouldn’t be a problem except we’re often staffing stores alone. And the company was like “You’re not allowed to close the store, though, just clock out and don’t get paid for 30 minutes.”

This made a lot of people very unhappy and was widely regarded as a bad move.

So our manager was trying to go over the changes and I was like, “So I’m required to clock out for 30 minutes even if I’m alone in the store for the day.” Yes.

“I am going to leave the store. I am legally allowed to leave if you are not paying me.” You will get written up.

“That violates the labor laws and this company has had to pay for these violations previously. I will leave and look at birds.”

When we clock out we get an option to say whether we took a lunch. If we say no it then asks if it was voluntary or not.

If it’s not voluntary then the company has to pay us a penalty for not giving us an opportunity to take the break.

Every single shift I worked alone (which was most of my week at that time) I marked the penalty box. If I couldn’t close the store and was working alone then I did not voluntarily give up my lunch. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in doing so.

Three months later the company sent out signs that we could put on the door for lunches and an official update that we could close the store to take a lunch.

we really, really should. 🚬

another piece for my noir series ;)

Once there, scan the shelves and physically pick up the first book that sparks even the slightest interest in you. No nuance, no further thoughts, just grab it.

This book is now your baseline.

From here, you can keep browsing and compare every next book you see to the one you've got in your hand.

If something else seems more interesting, swap it out! If another choice would be more practical, e.g. a little paperback instead of a thick hardcover tome whilst on vacation, swap it out! And so on and so forth, for as long as you fancy and/or have other books available.