Minddefenestration

Mutualistic pairs for an “Odd Couples” Valentine’s program at my work. (Why do so many of my big work projects revolve around Valentine’s programs?)

A rarely seen, highly endangered Andean mountain cat and her kitten in Santiago, Chile. Bottom right: older kittens following their mother through the snow. These small felines have long, thickly ringed tails and plush coats with a striking marbled pattern, handy for traversing the chilly, wind-swept ridges of the Andes.

One of South America's rarest felines, the Andean mountain cat is traditionally considered a sacred animal by indigenous Aymara and Quechua people.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you see one on the street,

For decorum is essential when a lobster you must greet.

You may comment on the weather, compliment his choice of hat,

But crustaceans like their space if one should stop them for a chat.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you’re strolling down the coast,

Simply nod and give a greeting, or a handshake at the most,

For a lobster’s first priority is formal social graces,

And one seemes over-familiar if a lobster one embraces.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you meet one in the sea,

For a lobster’s spines and chitin make it difficult, you see,

And he might become self-conscious if you bring that fact to light,

[Part 1 here] [Website/More Comics]

Hans Christian Andersen's the Little Mermaid: Part II.

For Mermay this year, I picked up where I left off adapting the original Little Mermaid fairytale last year. The world below the water is painted like black & white shadow puppets, while the world above the water is painted like stained glass. The shadow puppets call back to old fairytale storytelling traditions and the work of Lotte Reiniger, while the stained glass imagery reflects how the original story associates the world on land with churches and holiness and the question of who gets to have a "human soul."

Cards on the table

Look who's decided to show up! Thanks again for @hemi-demi for looking through the text for me <3

If you are new to this AU, or don't remember: It's called Gertrude is still around or GiSA

You can see my other posts for this au here: Gertrude is still around au on tumblr, or you can check out The AO3 if you want to read all the chapters in one place

and The Public still don't even realise that Quincey Morris just wandered his way into the plot of Dracula because no one ever includes him in the adaptations and no one's actually read the book

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.

Adapting the original Little Mermaid fairytale every day for May 2026: page 25. At the least the palace is beautiful. [This is part of an adaptation where the underwater world is painted like shadow puppets while the human world is painted like stained glass.]