if you defense for why eugenics bad is “ maybe our disabilities helpful actually ” you part of problem
those of us who not able do anything “ helpful ” still deserve live we not next step of evolution we just people stop worry if people disable could be good in future and just help keep alive in present
This pride and all year long, I want to give a shout out to us fat queer people
To fat queer people who never get to see representation of themselves because the vast majority of queer representation is of thin people
To fat queer people who have to put ten times the effort into their gender expression just to be viewed as 10% of their gender
To fat queer people who get misgendered no matter how they look
To fat queer people who can never present how they want to anyway because affirming clothes in their size are either nonexistent, triple the price, or terrible quality
To fat asexuals who are believed even less about their identity because they’re told it’s just a matter of “no one wanting to have sex with them”
To fat aromantics who aren’t respected because their aromanticism is viewed as “No one loved you anyway”
To fat gay people who have their identities denied because “You just couldn’t find a man/woman who wanted you”
To fat nonbinary people whose bodies are viewed in the queer community as inherently gendered and incapable of being androgynous
To fat binary trans people who are always viewed as whatever gender hurts them most
To fat trans people who are denied surgeries due to medical fatphobia, have difficulty finding products like binders in their size, are told that thinness is a must to “pass” as their gender, and have their bodies weaponized by terfs
To fat queer people who are viewed as “cringe” for the crime of existing as fat and queer
To fat queer people who can’t even buy pride merchandise without having to worry if their size will be offered and then have to pay more than thin queer people just to show their queer pride
To fat queer people who developed eating disorders due to the fatphobia peddled by their own communities
To fat queer people whose identities are partially influenced or entirely caused by the fatphobia they have experienced for years and decades
To fat queer people who are forced by fellow queer people into sexual positions they’re uncomfortable with, such as topping, just because they’re bigger and have stereotypes forced onto their body
To fat queer people who joined a relationship and experienced sexual trauma because their partner only wanted to humiliate a fat person and ignore your boundaries
To fat queer people who only see themselves in queer porn as a tool for the humiliation of thin queer people who dared to have sex with a fat person or never see your body in sexual content at all
To fat femmes who are viewed as butch no matter what they do because their fatness is gendered against their will
To fat butches who don’t feel able to experiment with femininity if they want to
To fat queer people who have an even harder time finding a partner in the queer community because of rampant fatphobia
To fat queer people who have had to hear “No fats, no femmes”
To fat queer people who are constantly told they’re not “truly oppressed” because they “don’t have it as bad as [X queer identity]”
To fat intersex people who have to deal with strangers believing they’re an expert on your body because fat people can’t have knowledge about how their own bodies work
To fat queer people who can’t even trust that other queer people fighting for equality won’t use fat bodies as symbolism for immoral behaviors and beliefs
To fat queer people who can’t rely on doctors who accept queer identities to not still discriminate against them because of medical fatphobia
To fat queer people who don’t believe they can be loved without being fetishized
To fat queer people whose queer identities are viewed even more as a fetish because their bodies are viewed as a fetish
To fat queer people who took way longer to realize they’re queer because they never saw any queer representation that included them
And to so, so, so many other fat people with experiences of fatphobia in the queer community
You all belong. You are the identities you say you are. You do not make the queer community “look bad” just because fatphobes want to use our bodies as weapons for fatphobia and queerphobia. You deserve to be respected and have representation. You deserve to not be treated as an afterthought.
We are queer, and our experiences matter.
“ To fat femmes who are viewed as butch no matter what they do because their fatness is gendered against their will “
I have been in a ballgown and opera gloves and curled my hair and pink makeup on the full 9 as fem as I could ever get. I was still asked to be ‘the man/lead’ when going to the event.
I fucking feel this so bad. I’m so sorry. You are not less femme than a thin person no matter what shit people say to you, and I promise you that
being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager
and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five
someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help
me: my what
What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.
when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.
Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’
1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!
In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose
b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.
g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.
This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.
Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.
so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!
How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense
Family owned Italian firm invents solar panels that mimic terracotta tiles to restore heritage buildings
In a small workshop near Vicenza, Italy, artisans make traditional-looking roofing tiles with a hidden difference: Each module contains solar photovoltaic cells.
The Invisible Solar Rooftile is made by an unique indivisible piece, with a very high resistance, that hides and protects the photovoltaic cells that are incorporated inside
The family-owned company that makes the tiles, Dyaqua, started developing its “Invisible Solar” products more than a decade ago. Solar panels “were spreading much faster than before, and our first thought was about heritage cities like Vicenza,” says company spokesperson Elisa Quagliato. The city, a World Heritage Site, is covered in a sea of red terra-cotta roofs.
The tiles have been installed at Pompeii (where the director of the archaeological park says they look “exactly like the terra-cotta tiles used by the Romans”) and in the small Italian town of Vicoforte. A larger installation will soon begin in Evora, Portugal, as part of an EU-funded project that aims to help historic cities “become greener, smarter, and more livable while respecting their cultural heritage.”
The same approach can be used to hide solar in other materials that look like stone, concrete, or wood, and incorporated into walls or patios, not just roofs. And it’s a way to potentially add solar where it wouldn’t otherwise be used.
People talk about “The Shape of Water” like it’s just the fish fucking movie as if it wasn’t about a mute woman feeling truly understood for the first time in her entire life and then yeah fucking a fish
