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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

QRP with your moon art One of several pieces I made with moons last spring.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Not there yet on the copying, and two more ink studies of my own photographs.

I hate how off this is from the original (Early Spring, Guo Xi) that I am trying to copy a piece of. It is getting there, but it isn't there yet.

Two more ink studies from my own photographs, larger this time.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The assignment at the end of this section is copying the ink drawing work of an old master. I picked Guo Xi. I am doing terrible studies after sections of scrolls just to understand his style. I also tried my hand at copying Buda Shanren, but felt weird about trying to copy gestural work.

The drawing board holding dry and drying ink studies.

Top: terrible attempt to copy a fish by Buda Shanren, next to an angrily blacked out attempt to copy some flowers by him. Bottom: a very rough study of "old trees, level distance" by Guo Xi.

Studies of sections of "clearing autumn skies over mountains and valleys" by Guo Xi which are not perfect at all but show that I am beginning to get a sense of his style. I will likely be choosing to work from this piece for my assignment.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Today dispatch from drawing class: we have switched gears to ink, which I love but am decades out of practice with.

Small sketch of trees along a lakeshore, after a photo I took a couple years ago in January

The whole page of ink practice, done with 3 sizes of brushes, a bamboo pen and a nib pen with a small round nib. This is a mix of doodles and lettering, hatching, brush control practice, washes and two actual drawings, one a dog with a ball and the other a small sketch of trees along a lakeshore.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The Poob is suspicious of paparazzi. Go away, he is napping.

Large black and white spotted cat napping with one half open eye regarding the camera

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Drawing 2, landscapes done and more work on my tomato basket still life.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I harvested a bunch of catnip barehanded on the way in the house today. Now my cats are hunting my hands.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

More spiders! The Charlotte Collective who guard my tomatoes all seem to have successfully bred and now I need to figure out a way to not harm their egg cases as I do seasonal garden work.

There is a large black and gold orb weaver in a web that stands the image and she is just visible if zoomed in at the very center

Out of focus orb weaver in her web in the foreground and another in the background in focus

Large orb weaver caring for her big egg sac hung in the branches of my big weedy tomato bush

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Landscapes and produce still life (unfinished) from my drawing class sketch book. I also took the reference photos.

Still life pastel of a plastic basket of tomatoes and peppers, unfinished, made on green toned paper

Pastel sketch of a view down an empty highway towards the horizon, with large clouds and trees, made on blue toned paper

Pastel sketch of cornfields under a sky with large cumulus clouds, in the near distance is a single tree.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Added more color to Dad, and worked out how to open his eyes. Might be done, might update tomorrow with refinements.

Pastel portrait of a man and woman in wedding clothes

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Another shot of The Poob who is inches form my face and hard to photograph

A black and white cat looks into the camera with one barely open eye

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The Poob has arrived for some FaceTime, which does not mean a video call at our house.

An extreme close up of a very cuddly, large black and white shorthaired cat.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Today's update, with Dad fully roughed in but in desperate need of more color, and mom done except for touch ups and maybe heightening her color too. This time I'm including a couple of process stages, as well.

A pastel double portrait of a couple in wedding clothes, seen from about chest level up. The man has his right arm around the woman. His eyes are closed, while she looks directly at the viewer.

A process stage image of the same portrait, with the man's head only partially worked on

An even earlier stage, before fully working the woman and correcting an error in the woman's hairline. Also this was before starting on stage 2 of working the man's face.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Dispatch from drawing II: the big pastel portrait assignment, which we get to work on until the 10th. I decided to use a photo of my mom and dad at their wedding reception. Yes, Dad blinked. He does that.

Unfinished pastel drawing of a man and woman in formal dress, done in dark paper

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Some awful unfinished pastel sketches from class this week

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Tw: spiders. Large, friendly spiders. And tomato plants. A lack of pruning for spiders' sake. And one deceased grasshopper.

The largest girl, a big, fat, likely gravid black and yellow orb weaver nested smack in the center of my tomato trellis, the better to catch her dinner. Her dinner today appears to be a grasshopper as large as she is. Clever girl

I'm not sure if this one is female or not, it is small and I can only see from the side. Doesn't look skinny enough to be a boy, tho. Named Charlotte, too, just in case.

This one is smaller than the biggest one, but she's definitely a girl, and ferociously guarding those green tomatoes.

Not very close up, but this one is the lady I've been avoiding pruning my front hedge for. She had three suitors but all are missing now. Expecting eggs soon, probably.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Doing gardening today, since it's not Satan's Taint outside. Last week I had to pick and toss dozens of split or grasshopper nibbled fruits. This week I was able to pick a big bowl, there's still blooms, and some green ones for Mom to make fried tomatoes. Pictured: guardians. Tw: spiders.

She's out of focus, but there is a huge female orb weaver in the top center of the photo. There are 4 girls in my tomatoes eating really well on grasshoppers and other wildlife and protecting my tomatoes.

A large black and yellow orb weaver in focus in front of a collapsed split tomato that I'm not pulling so she can stay where she is.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Today's homework is a pencil portrait of Mooncake, aka Bubble

Graphite and colored pencil sketch of a Siamese cat

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Feral cat update: Today I caught the last adult female cat, who is apparently very in heat as dudes I've never seen before had shown up to see her. Bitsy is at the vet getting spayed, vaxed and ear tipped.

A very talkative white and orange spotted adult male cat who looks just like (long since TNRed) Creamsicle, but he isn't one of hers as far as I know. He was very interested in Bitsy and is still hanging around outside.

Bitsy, a mostly black tortie in the transfer crate, and not at all happy about it, and Blue, a completely gray male who has been hanging around Bitsy for a while but doesn't live here. I don't actually know if he's feral or just someone's cat that's allowed out.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

On the way out to pick up Tabbie from the vet, I noticed these tiny native bees busy on my catnip plant.

A small dark native bee busily gathering nectar and pollen from a cluster of catnip blooms

A small dark native bee on a catnip bloom cluster

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Another TNVR cat update: today, despite rain so heavy it apparently soaked through my raincoat, I was able to trap the main breeding female of the colony. She was the only one I got that needed to go. Itsy (orange boy who went to the vet yesterday) went into the traps twice and had to be let out.

A thin brown tabby cat who is visibly pregnant, inside a cat trap that has a yellow fleece blanket on top of it.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The summer tomato deluge has begun in earnest. Last week I gave away 10 to 12 pounds of them, and we ate as many. It's time to start prepping and freezing them for later use.

An oval bucket full of various sizes of ripe and near ripe tomatoes plus a couple of jalapeno peppers of various colors. Today's harvest, which I had skipped for a couple of days due to being busy with cats and other yard work.

The remains of Sunday's and Saturday's harvests, which is a roughly pyramidal loose pile of very ripe tomatoes on a marble cutting board.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Here's Earl, waiting quite patiently in the transfer crate, and Umbra, the one of this spring's kittens who volunteered.

A large battle worn gray tuxedo cat, waiting very patiently inside a wire crate under a yellow blanket.

A tiny young tabby cat who is upset about being trapped, inside a wire cat trap with cardboard on the floor and a yellow blanket on top

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Having trouble getting to sleep tonight so here's a photo of The Poob not having any trouble sleeping whatsoever.

Black and white cat asleep on a person's arm

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Still photos of the same piece, if you don't like squinting at the spinny version.

Greenware porcelain mug with carvings of the moon (or sun) and Asian influenced clouds.

Another view of the same greenware porcelain mug with carvings of the moon (or sun) and Asian influenced clouds.

Another view of the same greenware porcelain mug with carvings of the moon (or sun) and Asian influenced clouds, showing how the clouds wrap around under the handle.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

One of today's efforts towards work to be sold at the college art club benefit sale this fall. I don't know yet if that's a moon or a sun. Depends on how I want to glaze it.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Final dispatch from ceramics class. I survived both critique and packing all of my work out to my car.

A table full of ceramic pieces: eleven vessels, eleven bowls, four boxes, one lidded jar, one cutout design candle lantern, fourteen mugs, three beakers, two plates, a pitcher and a teapot.

A close up view of the cutout work candle lantern, showing the organic branch design

A view from the other side, showing about half of the table: five vessels, the candle lantern, the lidded jar, the four boxes, nine of the cups, the pitcher, the plates and the teapot

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Penultimate dispatch from the ceramics studio: setting out everything that's not in the last glaze firing for critique. I think I have more than a dozen additional pieces to add to this.

A table in a ceramics studio, partially set up for final critique. In front, ten multicolored test tiles, and behind that, eight coffee mugs, four jars, four pots, a lidded jar and the bottom of a lidded box, two bowls from the place setting assignment "dialogue with a past artist" waiting for the other pieces atop the sketched out design pages for each, seven more bowls in two stacks, two small beakers and five more cups. There is also a messy work tool bucket in the middle of the back row, covered with dried clay smears and with an apron tie hanging out of it.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

And a video, so you can see all the design. This is one of my favorite pieces.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Frogsong with bonus wind gently rattling my old window screen. 12 second loop.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

May the 4th be with you, have some super nerdy fan art.

A black and white, pen and ink, design for an arts and crafts style wallpaper border or stencil border depicting a stylized Mandalorian helmet and Boba Fett's spaceship as the repeating elements. The ship is the large pendant motif, while the helmet is the smaller alternating motif. The band has small squares running horizontally in the center, and varying sizes of squares are used as repeating ornaments.

A stuffed animal made to reproduce the homemade comfort toy named Lula that is a story element in the Bad Batch series, sitting next to a purchased replica of Boba Fett's helmet

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Done now. There's so much text in this it is twice as long as the character limit for alt text. See detail shots of each side for full alt text, including some that's not visible in the flat photograph.

A painting made of a painted and collaged canvas with a partial frame on the bottom edge composed of collaged textiles, cardboard, a cutout canvas board painting of a hand, and strips of text. The main canvas has seven triangular sections radiating from the center bottom: kittens on a blanket, a yellow swallowtail butterfly resting on a blooming dianthus, a loaf of bread painted onto a collaged cook book page, a sun dappled forest path, a house refelcting a sunset in its windows, a collaged knitting pattern and a painted measuring tape with yarn applied to simulate a ball that then leads to a few rows of knitting on a pair of bamboo needles; an exterior night scene of shadowed trees lit by moonlight. Due to character limit on alt text, I'll be posting it in sections with details of each side, because there is so much.

Text strips on the left side from center top counterclockwise:
I'm actually looking forward to this week's dose of engineered poison.
Time is a hell of a ride. I don't like the parts where there's crying or screaming, but I love the parts where there's joy.
On the other hand, I'm still here, I've weathered it all. Sometimes good luck is surviving the disaster, or fixing what's broken
if you used to be a manic pixie dream girl but now you're aging, what do you turn into?
Terrible shit is going down in my extended family and I can't stop it. I can't fix anything.
This is going to be the most disappointing, low rent, apocalypse yet.
i'm so angry right now. We should all be angry. I've been angry, but this is another spike of anger.
If a year ever needed burning to end it, it's this one.
(on frame)
worse than all the discomfort, this sense of how not only I have lost my former self, but how my family has lost.
I wait, it won't be possible.
It's been more than a month since I could use my hands fully.
One of the cats has distributed exciting janitorial opportunities throughout the house.
I have one working hand and one half working hand
I don't like this fairytale.
I needed my cane today
people in pain have less usable time than everyone else.
while I can finally sort of stand again, I still need a cane
Extra not enjoying McCarthyism 2.0
Apparently I've complained enough about my symptoms that facebook is now advertising mobility aids to me.

Right side of painting from center top clockwise
I'm actually looking forward to this week's dose of engineered poison.
Right now I'm trying for hope, which at this moment seems to be conscious denial in a nice dress so you can take it out in public.
Snatching joy back from the hands of despair is an act of rebellion and resistance.
last night I dreamed I was ok again. I worked on my house and I wasn't tired and my hands worked And then I woke up.
I hate when I have to be Evil Mom in order to not be a shitty parent. Everyone loses.
"every step you take will feel as if you were treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow."
another empty space where a person used to be in my larger social circle.

(on frame)
like I have lost part of my soul.
This is a place where everyone is having a terrible day. My adrenaline has worn off and I'm suddenly really tired.
Good news is that we caught it early before permanent damage.
If I could have one thing get better it would be my hands. I can't make things and it's making me feel
"No." is a complete sentence,

(on bottom of frame, not visible)
Last night I was crying from pain.
It's really hard not to cry.
My adrenaline has run out and I'm going to nap in this semi comfortable chair to the sound of the ventilator.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Today's dispatch from ceramics class, underglaze work on greenware because we are too close to semester's end to bisque first. That meant I could do incised designs, though, because you can do that on greenware.

Three cups, a pitcher, a teapot and two plates waiting on the drying rack

Side view of the meadow/pond plate from my final project, showing the plants drawn under the rim of the plate

Top view of the plate from the Charles Rennie Mackintosh portion of my final project, a riff on one of his rose tile designs, in wax resist over incised lines, with pink underglaze on the roses under the resist and a final coat of diluted leaf green underglaze

A snapshot of the incised line work before the underglaze and resist was applied. Greenware is necessary for this step whether you are applying underglaze before bisque firing or not.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Assembled the collaged textile elements, glazed them with acrylic medium and pva, pinned some folds and put it aside to dry. Next I'm finishing the remaining sections

Painting with collaged textile panel and hand before applying pva and acrylic medium

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Here's what I mean when I say acrylics change as they dry. Lighter colors become darker, medium darker shades can lighten. Everything can become more muted. Tuesday to today.

A painting with seven pie slice sections all pointing to center bottom: unfinished kittens on a blanket, a butterfly on a dianthus, a loaf of bread on a collaged cookbook page, a sun dappled forest path, a house reflecting a sunset in its windows, a collaged yarn ball and knitting pattern, and an unfinished night scene. Paint just dry but not fully dry, the highlights are still a little too sharp, the shadows are a bit too deep on everything worked on Tuesday evening.

The same painting a few days later after the paint has had time to cure. Today, the colors are less sharply in contrast.

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A Shiny Blue Thing Collected By A Bird @shinybluething.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Stayed up late working on the parts for my mixed media painting and this is where I am. Lots more to do.

Cutout painted hand, sitting on top of the main canvas, which has seven pie slice sections marked out, radiating from the center bottom. Clockwise from bottom left they are barely roughed in kittens on a fuzzy blanket, finished yellow swallowtail on a dianthus, finished bread loaf painted on a collaged cookbook page, finished view down a sun dappled forest path, finished house at sunset reflecting the sky in its windows, mostly done collaged knitting pattern with applied yarn, background layer of an unfinished exterior night scene

Cutout painted hand, holding a set of wood knitting needles with several rows of knitting, sitting on top of the main canvas, which has seven pie slice sections marked out, radiating from the center bottom. Clockwise from bottom left they are barely roughed in kittens on a fuzzy blanket, finished yellow swallowtail on a dianthus, finished bread loaf painted on a collaged cookbook page, finished view down a sun dappled forest path, finished house at sunset reflecting the sky in its windows, mostly done collaged knitting pattern with applied yarn that connects to the knitting needles, background layer of an unfinished exterior night scene

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