Raylee Schobel

Call me Raylee. I'm an artist currently working in Texas. My pronouns are she/her, but I actually don't care what I go by.

I occasionally do some painting, but my heart belongs to printmaking. And birds. If I’m not working on my art, I’m probably cross stitching or fiddling with my shrimp aquarium.

This year, I’m working on a project to make 12 wood engravings about real bird species interacting with fantastical creatures. These prints are the main rewards for my Patreon members this year, along with stickers and patches

Reblogging things to @notmybusinessaccount

Check me out on Instagram and Patreon ↓↓

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Thrush's Folly

Meadow Mythos

A Nap Interrupted

Wood engraving, 2026

I didn't expect you

back so soon.

Things have been

peaceful.

quiet.

still.

You returned.

You bring

Chaos.

You bring

Noise.

But moreover,

You bring Light.

Im working on editioning prints I made earlier this month during a residency in Vermont :3

Reduction relief print for Patreon members November 2025

Both the Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, and the Red Rail, Aphanapteryx bonasia, were flightless birds that were endemic to the Mascarene island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The Dodo was the first of the two to go extinct around 1662, and the Red Rail followed soon after around 1693. A few of the later reported sightings of the Dodo are now understood to be a misidentification of a Red Rail, leading to a lot of gray area in the actual date of the Dodo's extinction.

It's been widely said that the reason for the Dodo's extinction was overhunting by humans, but this is actually not as big as a factor as the environmental changes humans brought with settlement. The human population on Mauritius never exceeded 50 people in the 17th century, but they destroyed forest habitats and introduced other animals, including dogs, pigs, cats, rats, and crab-eating macaques, which plundered nests and competed for the limited food resources. The impact of the introduced animals on the Dodo and Red Rail populations, especially the pigs and macaques, is today considered more severe than that of hunting.

The last claimed sighting of a Dodo was in 1688. However, British ornithologist Alfred Newton pointed out in 1868 that the name "Dodo" might have been passed on to the Red Rail after extinction. Some descriptions after 1662 clearly used the name Dodo when describing a Red Rail, therefore making the 1662 sighting by Dutch mariner Volkert Evertsz the last credible sighting of the Dodo. There was a settlement hiatus on Mauritius between 1658 and 1664, and it's believed that feral pigs caused the extinction of the Dodos in this time. When settlers returned to the island, they were expecting to see large, flightless birds, and the Red Rails were the only species seen that fit that description, hence the confusion in identity.

Patreon reward for October 2025

Labrador Duck

Edit: Somewhere in writing my initial blurb about the Labrador Duck, I'm guessing I accidentally hit the "9" key when I meant to hit the "8" key... this resulted in me not only having the incorrect year of extinction in the info about the species, but also in the final print (⸝⸝⸝-﹏-⸝⸝⸝) The Labrador Duck went extinct in 1878, NOT 1978. Please do better than me and proofread things you write before committing weeks to a project. Okay that's all I love you.

The Labrador Duck, Camptorhynchus labradorius, is an extinct sea duck species. It is notable for also being the first endemic North American bird species to go extinct after the beginning of the Columbian Exchange.

Labrador Ducks were specialized to feed on mullosks, such as snails and clams, and some fishermen even reported catching them accidentally when using mussels as bait. Their bills were highly modified from that of most ducks, having a wide, flattened tip with lamellae inside. The beak was also notably "soft," suggesting that they may have used their beaks to probe for food in sediment.

The reason for the Labrador Duck's extinction is difficult to identify. They were said to have tasted bad and rotted quickly, making hunters generally avoid them. However, egg harvesting and feather demand may have had an effect on the species' population. It seems like human influence on the Eastern North American coast played much more of a role in the demise of the species. On the Eastern Seaboard, increasing human population and industry led to a decrease in shallow-water mussel populations, a food source that the Labrador Ducks were dependent on.

Believe it or not, these paintings were done on paper and then cut and glued to the wood blocks. My mom came into my studio yesterday while I was painting the sides black. She had only seen the paintings when I was working on paper, so she asked how they got on the blocks. When I told her I “cut them out and glued them on,” she just paused and said “that’s pretty brave of you.” Both for cutting out and gluing the already-done paintings, and for painting the sides of the block after I had already glued them on. I would argue that it wasn’t necessary “brave,” but “not fully thought through.” Still, I’m very happy with how they turned out!

The painting vs the palette :)

I’ll have 8 little warblers available next week! Patreon members and newsletter subscribers will get first dibs <3

Patreon reward for September 2025

The Carolina Parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis, was a small neotropical parrot that was native to the Eastern, Midwest, and Plains states in the US. It was the only parrot species indigenous to its range, and only one of three parrot species native to the United States. They had been called puzzi la née or pot pot chee by the Seminole tribe and kelinky by the Chickasaw. The earliest known reference to the species was in 1583 in Florida, and their first scientific description was by English Naturalist Mark Catesby in 1731.

Carolina Parakeets lived in massive flocks of as many as 300 individuals, building nests in hollow trees and even sharing nests on occasions. They had been fairly prevalent in the beginning of colonization of the Americas, but studies suggest that the species had been in decline since the last glacial maximum (20-26,000 years ago). Of course, the introduction of Europeans to the continent only served to expedite their extinction.

The species began to collapse as deforestation of the eastern and southern deciduous forests of the United States began. Additionally, hunting played a significant role in their decline. The demand for decorative feathers was high, and the Carolina Parakeets were gorgeous little birds. They were also hunted on occasion by farmers thinking of them as pests, but their tendency to eat invasive cockleburs mediated that a little. The parakeets were an incredibly social species, and mourned for lost members of their flock by gathering around the dead or dying bird. This behavior only served to make them easier targets as far as hunters were concerned, and it allowed for wholesale slaughter of flocks. After 1860, the bird was rarely spotted outside of Florida, the Florida swamps remaining as the last safe haven for the species. The final cause for the species' extinction is not fully understood, as they rapidly declined in population in the early years of the 20th century, the last known wild specimen being killed in 1904.

sorry i recycled an instagram post again