xaelyie

carve this world all you want you will never be able to make it beautiful

packing preorders for my book killed me inside :‘3 I’m so glad it’s over because I am going through some drawing withdrawal here through the week and a half of straight basement sweatshop work lol ;_;

✮ PSD/full process video/steps for this piece for my November patrons at http://patreon.com/shilin ✮

the truth behind artist twitter/tumblrs 

started learning this last night, waltz from suite #2 op 17 for 2 pianos by rachmaninoff

I wanted to paint Blackbird playing a cadenza at Palais Garnier, and picturing the waiting silence of the orchestra that is no longer there. I wanted more energy in her playing but maybe I can do better in the next one

✮ PSD/full process video/steps for this piece for my January patrons at http://patreon.com/shilin ✮

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One cat, Simon, was given the rank “Able Seacat Simon” after dutifully killing rats and mice that were destroying the HMS Amethyst’s food supplies. The ship had come under fire during the Chinese civil war and many of its crewmen had died. The cat had been gravely injured, too, but he picked out the shrapnel himself – seriously – and went straight to killing the rodents that were overrunning the ship. He unfortunately passed from his injuries two weeks before he was scheduled to receive the Dickin Medal. To this day, he is the only cat to receive this award.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of No Man’s Land…

Meet Percy, mascot of HMLS (D20) “Daphne” with Lt Drader. Both survived the War, and Percy retired to live out his peacetime life in the Drader family home.

(Here’s a video clip; given how noisy, hot and smelly early tanks were, Percy seems remarkably unfazed.) 

A US Army tank cat, Mustard of the 321st, with a Renault FT light tank and its driver Sgt Postal…

A Royal Artillery kitten (the battery mascot)…

Pincher of HMS Vindex on what looks like a Sopwith Pup scout…

Togo, ship’s cat of HMS Dreadnought (though I’ve also seen “HMS Irresistible”)…

Ship’s cat of HMS Queen Elizabeth atop 15″ main battery…

And speaking of big ships and big guns…

For most, decolonization of science calls for something more complex and subtle. “Decolonization is going to happen in the mind,” says Siyanda Makaula, a former cardiology lecturer who now works in university governance. Such shifts in thinking could mean, for example, that pharmacology students hear how drugs are being developed from plants their grandmothers used to treat stomach ache. This would show the relevance of traditional culture in modern science and anchor the curriculum in local experience. In other subjects, it could be about highlighting the contribution of non-Europeans, or facing the unsavoury history of a discipline: for example, exploring how medical research had a role in fuelling racist ideas and how these were challenged and overturned. Across the board, it means ensuring that research addresses local problems and challenges.