"...And then they all got splattered."

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.

thanksgiving

christmas

not pictured: when I came back from the holidays and there’d been a huge storm while I was gone, so all that was left was a pelvis

but we persist. valentines

st patricks day

*The Last Contract of Isako, Fonda Lee (5 May). Corporate samurai space opera.

Death’s Daughter, SA Barnes (5 May). Death’s daughter Jocasta is quietly attending university undercover when he names her as his successor and makes her a target.

Platform Decay, Martha Wells (5 May). The latest book in the Murderbot series, and a full novel.

*The Girl with a Thousand Faces, Sunyi Dean (5 May). Hong Kong gothic about a young woman confronting a powerful ghost. My review.

Radiant Star, Ann Leckie (12 May). A planet on the brink of being absorbed by the Raadchai empire allows one last man to be mummified as a living saint, which has unexpected political consequences.

We Dance Upon Demons, Vaishnavi Patel (12 May). A reproductive health care worker fights both human attacks on her clinic and supernatural attacks after she develops mysterious powers. My review.

Make Me Better, Sarah Gailey (12 May). Horror novel about a vulnerable woman pulled into a community that promises an end to loss.

*Vile Lady Villains, Danai Christopoulou (12 May). The Klytemnestra x Lady Macbeth book. My review.

All Hail Chaos, Sarah Rees Brennan (12 May). Sequel about a young terminal cancer patient who is transported into her favorite series as a minor villain.

The Tapestry of Fate, Shannon Chakraborty (19 May). Second Amina al-Sirafi pirate book.

Palaces of the Crow, Ray Nayler (19 May). A band of children and suspicious crows surviving in Lithuania during World War I.

Mortedant’s Peril, RJ Barker (19 May). A cleric who reads the memories of the dead must solve a mystery where he himself is the main suspect. My review.

Startup Hell, Caitlin Rozakis (19 May). A young witch is just trying to make it in the corporate world when she discovers her boss dead in the process of summoning a demon.

The Fake Divination Offense, Sara Raasch (19 May). m/m fantasy romance about a half giant fantasy sportsball player fake dating a cheerleader.

Bone of My Bone, Johanna van Veen (26 May). Sapphic nun relic road trip in war-torn seventeenth century Europe. My review.

take up space, read the plaques, get the audioguides. you are just as entitled and right in being there. visit museums, boycott museums, be expressive about your opinions about museums.

a lot of museums are free, or discounted for youth and students. take advantage of that. check your local art museum. check your local history museum. museums are there for you, they are there to educate the public, not to distinguish between class. it isn't a private collection, it's a public exhibit.