I suppose I could, like, create a title...

Common Raven (Corvus corax) teasing a gull (Larus spp) - series by Sandra Gilchrist

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

«The Secret of the Evening Lake»

Sometimes we all long for a little more silence and peace, especially when life feels full of noise, emotions, and endless thoughts.For me, the most comforting subject to paint is always sunsets and sunrises. I love the way warm glowing colors meet cool shadows, creating those brief moments when everything feels balanced and calm.While working on this painting, I kept thinking it needed something more. I tried adding people, then birds, then tiny insects. Later I experimented with shimmering lights, almost like fireflies dancing above the water. In the end, I stopped before fully developing them.At some point I realized that this landscape didn’t need anyone or anything else. Its quietness was already enough.So I left it exactly as it is.Wishing you a moment of stillness, peace, and the chance to spend time either with yourself or with the people who make you feel at home.

Number 25 of the Close Encounters Collection, "Wimdy"!

Couldn't resist contributing to the "It Heckin Wimdy" meme!

Here's the painting without the meme text:

Something is fungible when it is completely interchangeable with its own kind in a trade or exchange. For example, currency is fungible -- one US dollar can be traded with another US dollar and essentially nothing has happened. The two dollars might be physically different -- most currencies are marked with serial numbers in case they need to be tracked due to theft or counterfeiting or whatever -- but in trade this doesn't matter. The specific dollar you have has no effect on anything -- any dollar is every dollar. Electricity is another fungible asset -- once it's in the system, it makes no difference whether the electricity you're using was developed in a coal plant or a nuclear plant or a solar panel. (Electricity, unlike coins, is physically identical which means you can't even have non-fungible edge cases like collectible coins.)

Houses, or racehorses, or paintings, are non-fungible. You can trade these just like money or electricity, but one house is not equal to every house -- their values will change relative to each other, and which house or horse or painting you have matters. If you want to economically model the value of houses as assets and trade goods, you can't do so in the unit of "house" -- you have to convert it to a fungible currency, like the dollar or the megawatt-hour, first. (You can create an "average house value" and mark the value of every house as a certain percentage above or below it, but this is just currency with extra steps. Now you've invented a fungible token useful only in comparing and trading houses. Hooray.)

One of my early paintings of cats, "Glowing Cat"!