wickedphie

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Gromit's recreational activities

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Zelenogorsk is sand bathing

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My current favourite tiktok trend is the one where people wrap presents to look like something they're not and some people get ridiculous with it

Like:

✨The dedication ✨

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I was at a bookstore looking through the art section and I saw a spine that said The Camden Town Nudes which was interesting because this didn’t seem like the bookstore where I would ever find something like that and I wanted to have a casual look but like. This also wasn’t exactly the bookstore where you felt like you could look at naked pictures let alone just suggestive paintings of them, it’s a really small shop as well, so I was like right I’ll just take a quick peek, I’m an art student, I love history, maybe I’ll buy it. I looked both ways and saw the shopkeep had left momentarily and no one was about, so I opened it and found it was an entire book featuring nude Edwardian women all painted by Walter Sickert between 1905-1912 and it was actually quite a revolutionary set of paintings for its time given that it featured very raw depictions of working class nude women in dark London instead of the elegant, white bedsheet clad, Demure middle and upper class women usually depicted.

And of course RIGHT as I flip to this lady’s boobs practically taking up an entire double page spread, every customer in a 5 mile radius appeared from around the corners of the shelf including the shopkeep and immediately regressing to a wet, pathetic Edwardian man from 1908, startled, I dropped the large book which caused a giant SLAP on the floor in this already silent store thus causing all patrons to look down at me scrambling on my knees to close a giant book of Edwardian boobs and let me tell you it would not have been nearly as funny had I not immediately felt like some Edwardian local pervert who just tried to sneak a cheeky peek at the erotic book in the bookstore only to drop it dramatically causing a scene, red up to his ears trying to shove it back on the shelf. Like such a casual and normal thing in modern day but looking at Edwardian women suddenly turned it into this egregious act as I apparently became possessed by the spirit of a moustached man in a bowler hat and morning coat going Good Heavens I mustn’t gaze upon these images in public lest the constable haul me away!

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We have exactly one Christmas tradition in my house, and it feels very important to share it. I've been a cat person basically forever and for most of my adult life, my house has had more cats than people in it. They've all liked sleeping under the Christmas tree and all that, but other than that, they always just sort of ignored it.

But in 2018, we got Natasha.

There are about a dozen pictures like that, but I always adopt adult cats, so we figured this just came with having a kitten in the house. She was just this tiny little fluff who still fit in my cupped hands despite being about six months old, so we put away the ornaments, shrugged it off, and took advantage of the opportunity to have a really cute Christmas card the next year.

Then, 2019 came around.

Natasha escalated to sleeping in the tree in between trying to eat all the branches, and honestly, it was too funny to make more than a cursory effort to stop her. My partner and I assumed that since she was still pretty tiny, she had more growing to do and would surely get to a point where her own body weight would keep her from doing this. In the meantime, we left the tree without ornaments that year and just called it good.

But then 2020 came around, forcing us to acknowledge that:

Natasha was not going to get too big to do this. At this point it had become clear that she wasn't developing slowly. She was just a really tiny cat. She's less than half the size of any other cat I've ever had.

Natasha was also not going to chill out enough to stop doing this.

But hey. Who needs ornaments with a face like that poking out of the branches at you all the time?

Sure enough, 2021 Natasha also had zero chill about the tree, but at this point it would have been weirder if she did leave it alone.

I thought I had seen everything, but this year I'd been kind of down and my partner decided to surprise me by setting up the tree and stuff while I was at work. It was an incredibly sweet gesture considering they don't actually even like Christmas decorations. It also meant I got to come home to this.

I kept expecting her to fall out, but she just chilled there, surveying the room until she got bored. And yes, that is absolutely a big, fancy cat tree she's ignoring in favor of scaling the Christmas tree.

Two days before Christmas, she has finally gotten bored enough that I'm making my first attempt in ages to actually put up ornaments. At this point, I'm not sure if I'll be more disappointed if they have to come down or if they don't.

[wickedphie]

I knew poinsettias "faked" having big flowers by just turning some leaves red but I didn't know the real tiny flowers in the middle looked like such idiots

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Cyerce Elegans, also known as Butterfly Nudibranch is a species of sacoglossan sea slug, a shell-less marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusk in the family Caliphyllidae.

🎥 source

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[wickedphie]

open a new window somewhere in the world. 

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Gävle Goat is Bock!

Welcome all straw goat and arson enthusiasts! Another year of Gävle Goat watching is upon us. Just a few things before the goat is officially up for the first Sunday of advent!

I will post the date on all of my goat updates, but it is still a good idea to turn timestamps on for your posts if you don’t already in case posts from old years start circulating.

I like to post my updates around midnight Swedish time, so keep in mind when that would be for your time zone if you are checking my blog for updates.

If you are looking for information about past goat activities I highly recommend the Gävle Goat Wikipedia page! I also have the tag Gavle goat lore where I have answered asks about the goat in past years.

I’m looking forward to another year of goat watching with all of you. You can find the livestream at the bottom of this post, updates will start on the first Sunday of advent (December 1st this year).

And as always best of luck to any potential arsonists out there!

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I want to tell a story to the artists and would-be artists out there.

When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It's the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I'm proud of today.

I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-

I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I'd lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.

The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said "Oh I'm so sorry."

Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.

So don't forget to draw from observation, and remember that humans aren't mass produced mannequins. Delight in our variation. Because it's supposed to be there.

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Everyone rn:

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The Lady and the Unicorn  is the modern title given to a series of six tapestries created woven in Flanders from wool and silk, from designs drawn in Paris around 1500. The set, on display in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, considered one of the greatest works of art of the Middle Ages in Europe.

"According to my only wish."

"The lady with the unicorn. Hearing"

"The lady with the unicorn. Touch"

"The lady with the unicorn. Smell." 

"The lady with the unicorn. Vision"

"The lady with the unicorn. Taste"